


Her Month

by SayYouDontKnow



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: (basically the only katya u ever need), (like a little bit), College AU, F/F, Just think of Trixie in literally any circumstance with huge blonde hair, Romantic slow burn, and katya in that little wavy lob. fuckin love that wig, angst (later on!), college Trixie, lesbian librarian cat mom Katya, lesbian trixya, tension (always !)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-08-28 16:28:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16726893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SayYouDontKnow/pseuds/SayYouDontKnow
Summary: A strong, slow-moving hurricane ravages Trixie’s small college town. Shelter life is just as glamor-less as it seems, and she’s trapped until the storm has passed.And, to top it off, she’s stuck with a chainsmoking librarian who’s hellbent on becoming her friend.





	1. Arrival

 

“That’s it. Everything’s gone.” 

Sheets of rain pounding into the barren landscape. Everything moved so slowly in the midst of disaster, despite control slipping so easily from her fingertips. Trixie was pulled from her car headed east down the highway into three foot high floodwaters. Through half-lidded eyes, she watched her silver jeep disappear in the distance as the military-grade caravan headed back up the road, into town and the eye of the storm. It felt like the end of her world. 

“You’ll be able to come back to her after the storm passes,” an armed man in camo yelled from the side of the open van, pointing to the fading silhouette of her car.  

“Fuck off, dude,” the blonde muttered, crossing her legs and running her fingers through her hair. She had two backpacks - one with necessities, one with things that were a little less than essential. The clothes on her back. The cards in her pockets. The cash tucked in her bra. Sitting on the platform of the van, heart barely beating, and with the rain spraying over the sides of the truck - Trixie knew this storm was beyond expectations. 

“Why were you evacuating towards the sea?” the man asked after twenty minutes of silent travel. 

“Family. Plus, I didn’t think it would fucking flood inland before it flooded on the coast.” 

“The coast has a built in drainage system. They expect flooding, inland doesn’t. You still have a mobile device, right?” 

“Yeah. I can contact ‘em.” 

“Need a charge?” 

“No. I...No, no thank you.” Trixie pressed herself against the back wall of the truck, sheltered by a small tarp. She pulled a blanket out of her bag, wrapping it over her head and torso. 

The world was dark, and Trixie was afraid. 

She opened her eyes next in the dark of night, a firm hand on her shoulder. It was the same man, leaned over and holding her bags. 

“Ma’am, we’re here. The shelter.” 

“Please don’t touch me.” 

He pulled his hand away, instead gesturing to the bags. 

“...When can I go home?” 

“We’ll be back after the storm and when roads reopen.”  

“When will that be?” 

He looked out onto the building in the distance and sighed, only responding by inching the bags closer to her face. Trixie snatched them from him, standing and hopping off the edge of the platform. The man followed her inside, walking straight for a makeshift reception table in the entrance hallway. The blonde looked around, a bag in each hand, eyes wide. The shelter was a renovated high school, fit with a trophycase, student art displays, and a plethora of plaques decorating the walls.  

“Yeah. Just the one tonight. Driving down the interstate - I asked, yeah, no, she’s not in immediate danger - look, just ask her, why don’t you?” 

Thunder rolled across the sky, shaking the tiles beneath Trixie’s feet. Flickering fluorescent lights, the pale yellow walls with brick accents. The man stepped aside, revealing a shorter woman who gestured to her. 

“Can I see your I.D.?” An accent. Something foreign. 

She fished her license out of her coat pockets and dropped it on the table, not bothering to look at the woman. What was the point of leaving her car? She would’ve made it. 

“You’re just a kid. Fuck were you doing out driving in a hurricane?” 

“‘s not a big one,” she muttered. 

“Still a hurricane. Where are you from?” 

“You’re looking at my I.D., shouldn’t you be able to tell?”  

The woman chuckled, extending a hand with the card out. “Wow. Won’t even look at me, huh? It’s alright. It’s happened enough times for me to stop taking it personally.” She yanked her hand back when Trixie moved to grab the card. “Though, listen up to this, okay?”

Trixie huffed, running her fingers through wet curls. It was hard not to be angry, but it wasn’t like the woman who sat before her was to blame for one of the worst hurricanes to hit her town - ever. She lowered her chin slowly, exhaling as she opened her eyes. 

Bright, shining teeth. White as the blinding sun. 

“Ah, that’s better. Alright. If you leave the shelter during the storm, you will not be allowed back in. We don’t care what reasons you had, it’s just protocol here. Your background check will fully process in the morning - which means we may have to call you in to talk about certain things, health and regulatory shit, special acceptions, what have you. But honestly, blondie, we’re at max capacity, so don’t expect anything special from us.” The woman - with a dirty blonde bob and bangs clipped out of her eyes - looked up at the man, smiling. “She’s the last for tonight, right?” 

“That I’m scheduled for, at least. I don’t think anybody would be crazy enough to try driving this late in a hurricane,” he muttered, glancing at Trixie. “But...I may make the rounds one more time.” 

“Poor bastard. I’m gonna take Pixie here-“ 

“Trixie.” She whipped her head around the glare at the woman, only to be met with a playful expression. 

“Sure, sure. I’m gonna take her to the common area, but I’ll send Ginger up to man the desk until morning.”  

“Alright. Have you figured out the smoke break situation?”  

“No, but the dinner riots have quieted down. Most everybody is asleep. Stay safe out there.”  

“And you in here.” 

He walked away like a stranger, and Trixie didn’t mind. She stood awkwardly beside the desk manager, shifting her weight before the woman raised from her chair. 

“...D...didn’t you say you’d take me somewhere?”  

The woman tilted her head. Slowly, a small grin stretched across her face and she pulled a cloth napkin out of her pocket, wheezing into it loudly. 

“What the fuck - are you okay?” 

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just funny to watch you stand there and pretend like I won’t see you if you didn’t make any noise.” The woman beamed at her. “It’s not every day I get to be a pretty girl’s tour guide. Let’s show you around.” 

Trixie blinked. Her hands tightened around the straps of her bags. And she nodded.  

The woman was short, much shorter than Trixie expected. She stood a head closer to the ground than her, with a voice that floated between vocal ranges and tones. Dancing between complex teasing and indisputable sincerity. Walking quickly, like they didn’t have time to kill. Like Trixie would sleep at all that night. 

“Alright, so!” The woman put her hands on her hips, straightened her back, and did her best to play off the horrendously loud cracking noise that echoed in the halls when she straightened her back. “Welcome to...uh...this fuckin’ high school! I’m your host, Katya Zamolodchikova, and don’t you dare get comfortable because the ceilings could fall through at any moment. Seriously, we’ve already evacuated once.” 

“Ah.” 

“It’s not great. Can’t lie. We have as many working bathrooms as a shitty high school usually has, there’s two gyms being used as common areas, we don’t have many mattresses, and...eh. Y’know. The commonalities - drugs, alcohol, chainsmoking insurrections. The roaches of the community we don’t think about too much - I can say that, I’m one of ‘em - are all out to play here. Keep your bags close, pretty girl.”  

“ _Trixie_. And you mentioned a riot earlier?” 

“Ahhh, yeah, yeah. Do you smoke?” 

“No. Fuckin’ gross.” 

The woman glanced at her for a moment before continuing the tour. “Well, like I said. Chainsmoking insurrection. We didn’t schedule smoke breaks and they all needed one. It’s hard to remember everything. They got really angry and started throwing shit, and...it’s under control now. I think. That’s what matters.” 

“Crazies.” 

“You’re staying with a crazy tonight.” 

“...What?” 

“Do you even know what time it is?” 

“It’s...dark.”  

“It’s two in the morning, kid. I said I’d take you to the common room, but we can’t go in. Everyone’s asleep. Babies, toddlers, seniors...All hell would break loose if I opened the gym doors.” 

Trixie huffed and held her bags close to her chest. “Do I...sleep in the hall, then?” 

“Nah. You’ll be with me.” 

She stood, staring at the woman. 

“K...Ka-tea-uh, right?” 

“Katya, yes.” 

“Well, Katya, I, uh...I don’t wanna sleep with you.” 

She chuckled. “You’re not the first woman who’s said that to me so nervously.” 

Trixie’s face flushed and a bag slipped from her grasp, smacking against the tiled floors. She could feel the world shift around her. “N-No, I, I didn’t mean...it’s just, uh...I barely know you?” 

“You won’t know anybody here, Miss Pixie. I can almost guarantee it. So you know me better than anybody else in this building.” She grinned. “So flattered you chose me, by the way.” 

“Trixie. And I had no fuckin’ choice.” 

“Our room is this way,” Katya replied brightly, picking up Trixie’s bag and guiding her down to the end of the hall. It was lit ominously in a way, with the single flourescent panel bouncing light across the floors and the chipped paint on the walls. Like God had left them all behind. 

“...Our?” 

Like a dorm room, Trixie. Don’t let the world wander in such a direction. 

“Yeah, Ginger and I. A colleague of mine.” The woman smirked in her direction, resting a hand on the door handle. “Funny how your hair is so clean with your head stuck in th-“ 

“Shhhut up, shut up, I’m just. I’m just tired!” 

“Mmm. Long day.” Cracking open the door slowly, Kaytya peaked her head inside. “You awake in there? I brought fresh meat.” 

An older woman stepped out, with thick, red hair to her shoulders and a wide frame. 

“...So you’re preying on refugees now, eh?” 

“And if I am?” 

“I’d say it’s fucked up. She looks like she’s sixteen, leave that girl alone.” 

Trixie felt far away, removed entirely from the conversation. Like they existed in a plane far above her. What a disaster, her first year of college cut so sharply by a massive storm like this. Would things be able to return to normal? 

“Out of her car, yeah. She’s been kind of out of it, and...today’s a lot of people’s first real night of sleep, so I didn’t have the heart to even touch the gym doors.” When Trixie returned to the world in front of her, she saw Katya leaning back and rubbing her neck sheepishly. The older woman had her arms crossed, a stern expression plastered to her face. “Sooo...since you’re on duty now, I was thinking she could crash in here for the night?” 

“Poor thing. First she tried to drive into the eye of a storm, and now she’s being thrown into the middle of Hurricane Katya. I know what you’re doing, you skunk, and it’s a no from me.”  

“I’m not doing anything, you fucking wretch! Do you want Pixie sleeping in the hallway? She can’t spend the night in that fucked up infirmary, she’s not even sick and I doubt what few nurses we have want more shit to handle.” 

“I-it’s Trixie...” 

 “Is she trying to get into your pants, Pixie?” Ginger questioned snarkily, stepping forward and lifting her chin to stare at the blonde. 

“Trixie-“ 

“Ginger, I told you, I’m not gonna try anything! I’m trying to be considerate to the entire displaced city in the gym!” Katya exclaimed, jumping between the two. 

“There’s one mattress in our room. The room itself is about eight by eight feet. Are you comfortable with that, Pixie?” 

“My name’s _Trixie_.” 

“Ah. Sorry.” The older woman blinked. 

“It’s...it’s okay. Things are just very-“ 

“We’re wasting time, and we need somebody at the desk! I’m sure Tracy’s fine with it-“ 

Without thinking, she snatched Katya’s arm back and pulled her towards her, eyes firey and lips curling into a snarl. 

“How the _fuck_ ,” Trixie began in a hushed tone, “am I supposed to act polite and collected to one of the women I know I’ll have to deal with until this fucking hurricane passes if she can’t even let me finish a fucking sentence without cutting me off?”

The shorter woman stared at the blonde, her jaw slightly slack and her brows raised. A creeping bit of warmth travelling to her ears, spreading across her nose. 

She had really nice bone structure.

Trixie flew backwards, stumbling and clammering to keep from dropping her bag. “Sorry! Shit, sorry! I’m super stressed out! My bad!” 

Ginger took a step back, eyes wide. But then her expression changed - curious, maybe, definitely intrigued. 

“Katya has a point, for once in her life,” she said with a smile. “I need to go handle the desk in case any stragglers show up. Try to keep from killing each other, okay?” 

The older woman began to walk away, stopping for a moment beside Trixie. 

“Fuck with her a little bit,” she muttered. “It can be fun.”  

And like that, Ginger was gone. 

Trixie watched her fading frame, sighing. It was going to be hell, the waiting game she had unwittingly signed up to play. When she turned back to Katya, the woman seemed a little shorter, her stare just as intense and her cheeks deepening with a rosy hue. 

“...Ka-tea-uh?” 

“Yes?!” she barked, jumping upright. 

“I. I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“Oh. Oh, you didn’t scare me, Miss Trixie.” The name was smooth on her lips. Dripping like honey. 

How terribly awkward. Trixie exhaled slowly, slinging her bag over her shoulder and trying her best to smile kindly. “Should we...settle in, then?”  

“...RIGHT, that’s - that’s my job! _Fuck_ , I’m so tired, I’m sorry.” The woman rubbed her eyes and stumbled into the side room with Trixie following close behind. “It’s not much. And by that I mean it’s not shit in the slightest, and I’m awful to sleep with but I’ll...you need rest. You’re just a kid.” 

She wasn’t wrong. It looked like a storage closet with a mattress thrown in the middle of it. There was a trashcan that seemed to be a makeshift ashtray beside the mattress and under a nearby desk. What a wonderful world.  

“...It’s nice,” Trixie lied thickly, her eyes dragging over the mattress. She dropped her bag and kneeled beside it, pulling out a scrunchie and her blanket from the ride over. It was a little wet, but it would do.  

Katya watched her with thin eyes, seemingly documenting every movement. It felt like surveillance. A camera disguised as an attractive older woman.  

“Everything alright?” 

“You look tired, Trix.” 

“Nicknames this early on?” 

“Aw. Don’t you wanna be friends? I’d heard pretty girls like you were cold, but my heart didn’t want to believe it.” 

“Y...you don’t have to butter me up like that,” Trixie murmured, pulling her hair back and falling back onto the mattress.

“Just being honest.” The older woman shrugged, slipping a hand into her pocket and pulling out a lighter. “Any plans on sleeping tonight?” 

“...I wish. I don’t fuck with any of this at all,” she groaned, pulling the blanket over her face. “We evacuated way too late...all my friends skipped classes and left midway through the week, but I had a midterm.” 

“Midterm?” 

Trixie poked her head out of the blanket, looking up at the woman. She held a cigarette between two fingers, a softer expression on her face than before. Gentle and kind. “It’s like a mini final exam.” 

“Oh. Huh. Sounds stupid.” 

 The blonde leaned forward, smiling nervously. “You don’t know what a midterm is?” 

“I took a few art classes at a community college, I should probably remember this.” She laughed and unclipped her bangs, letting them fall over her forehead. “But y’know how it goes for artsy lesbians at a liberal arts school.” 

“And what’s that?” 

“You drop out and pick up roller skating again.” 

Trixie stared up at her for a moment before slamming a hand over her mouth, muffling shrieks of laughter.  

“What, what?!”  

“Nothing, I just-“ She gasped and rubbed at her eyes, smiling up at the woman. “I dunno, I was thinking about throwing on my skates again sometime soon.” 

A brighter look crossed Katya’s face. “Ah. How old are you, again?” 

“No.” 

She groaned and leaned into her cig, still smiling. “Can’t blame me for trying.” 

“Did you sign up for shifts here so you could pick up easy, lost college girls?” Trixie shot at her, furrowing her brows.  

“...I wish I had been that smart. How did you know they asked people to sign up?”  

“Because in my shitty town, they resorted to asking college students. I would’ve if I hadn’t left - fuck, maybe I should’ve just stayed. I’ll never know. But I didn’t think they’d ask...uh, yknow.” She looked Katya up and down. 

“I’m a public servant, Miss Trixie.” 

“I always said I should drop out of college and become a ‘ _public_ _servant_ ’,” the blonde lamented, emphazing her point with air quotes. “Always seemed easier to make money that way. I don’t have the body, though.” 

“The body to be a librarian?” Katya asked quietly, tilting her head. 

“...’scuse me?” 

“I’m a fuckin’ librarian, Pixie sticks.” A puff of smoke, swirling across the woman’s visage and fading as the two held eye contact. 

She stared at Katya. And stared and stared and stared, staring until the woman nervously looked around the room to avoid Trixie’s harrowing gaze. 

“ _You’re_ a government employee?” 

“Yeah. I know. I slipped through the cracks.” What a peculiar way of putting it. “But you think I look like a hooker? How kind.” 

Trixie rolled over on her side, facing away from Katya. Hiding the embarrassment that flooded through her body. The smell of smoke swirling in her lungs, the soft rise and fall of her breathing. Heavy hung the air between tethered strangers. 

“And they didn’t ask me, y’know. I don’t wanna be here.” 

“What?” 

“I would’ve been fired if I had evacuated. Part of the job, I guess. Total bullshit. I sent my cat and all my books to the coast, where you were headed.” They sat in a moment of quiet before she exhaled, and the scent of ash strengthened in the room. “Maybe you crossed paths with the pieces of me that I sent to the shore.” 

“That’s...that’s fucked up.” 

“Yeah. Yeah,” Katya murmured, dipping her head and letting out a puff of smoke. 

The blonde sat for a moment, sighing and puling her hair over her face. “Sorry I yelled at you earlier. Really. I’m usually the one who cuts people off, too. You don’t get paid enough to deal with stupid whores like me.” 

“S’alright.” Her voice was warm. The only warmth in the room. “Are you doing okay? Head-space wise? Did you leave just to be with family, or is your home fucked up, too?” 

“...All I have is with me and in my car.” Trixie winced thinking about the highway again. “My room was first floor. Water up to my ankles. They’ll never let me move back in.” 

“Apartment?” 

“Dorm.” A deep sigh. “Which means they legally have to find somewhere for me to sleep...which means I’ll probably be in another gym, awake and staring at other ceilings until the semester ends. If it even starts up again.” 

“I might not have anything, either. My home is surrounded by pines. Everything might be crushed, I’d be none the wiser.”  

“You don’t sound too upset about that.”

“...Well. Y’know. Am I even allowed to be upset at this point? I dunno.” Quiet footsteps, curling around the mattress and beside Trixie’s back. She rolled over to look up at Katya, who had sat down beside her. “But don’t you think it’s funny how we can talk like this?” 

“What do you mean?”  

“Well...it’s funny, isn’t it.” The woman flinched and shuddered, dropping the smoldering butt of the cig beside the mattress. “How we can be so open and honest. Like we’ve been friends for years.” 

“It’s just because I know none of this means shit and that I won’t want to remember much when I’m gone.” She crossed her arms over her chest. 

“So I’m meeting the real Trixie, eh?” 

“I guess. A real pissed off and nasty Trixie.” 

“Could we be friends?” 

“No.” 

The click of her lighter, and that same, burning scent.  

“Is it because I’m a gay librarian?” 

“No.” 

Katya hummed under her breath. “Because I...haven’t showered in a while?” 

The blonde scrunched up her nose. “No.” 

“Why?” 

“You smoke.” She rolled onto her stomach, propping her chin up on the edge of the mattress. 

“We wouldn’t be that intimate,” Katya muttered, leaning back into the mattress. 

“Still stands. It’s gross.” 

“Mm.” 

“But.” Pressing her face into the edge of the mattress, she sighed. “I guess it’s better than the gym with all those people.” 

Katya glanced down at her, a sly smile stretching over her face. “Well...Hm. Now I feel bad, especially thinking that you’ll be sleeping in a gym for a while.” Trixie lifted her head. “And...well, I’m not implying you sleep in here with me, but...” 

“...Is that an option?” 

“I could try to make something work. You’ll be stuck with me for a long while, though.”  

She stared up at Katya, her cheeks warming and her expression melting to one much softer. Gentle, even. “Thank you. It means a lot.” 

Katya’s nose deepened in hue, her eyes fluttering. “C...Could we be friends then?” 

“No.” Deadpanned. 

“UGH. Fine. I’ll crack you down eventually.” 

“Go to sleep, Katya. Or I’ll tell that other lady that you’re picking favorites.” 

“...Rat.” 

“Chainsmoking grandma,” Trixie murmured, her breath light and airy. Katya tilted her head to look at the girl, only to see closed eyes and a far-off expression.  

She sat up, pulling her legs close to her chest and looking over the blonde. Chipped nail polish, unbrushed ringlets in her hair, pink everything, and a soft aura that surrounded her. 

The world, crashing around them. Swirling winds and crashing thunder, knowing full well that her city and the blonde’s far off hometown could collapse beneath the storm. The heavy weight of loss, unknown and expected. It must be tiring, worrying about losing so much with so little to do. When all the world can do is beckon one to sleep. 

Katya extended her hand, letting her fingers graze over the loose blonde curls for just a moment. 

 

“Sleep well, _kotenok_.” 


	2. The Outer Wall

It wasn’t like Katya meant to pick favorites. 

The tall, well-endowed, and thick-thighed Dolly Parton wannabe just happened to pique her interest. That’s all. 

The doll in question slept like a rock - all through the night, rolling onto her side and eventually into the middle of the mattress. Her hair, thick and soft, flowing over her face and creeping over the sides of their makeshift bed. Rosy cheeks. A softer image built on a softer life. 

Katya leaned into her fourth cig of the night, her gaze raking over the blonde’s image. She had slept for maybe two hours or so in the desk chair tucked in the corner of the room, eyes fluttering open every twenty minutes to see Trixie exactly where she had been before Katya had dozed off. Peaceful. Calm. 

Like an angel, god dammit. 

She shook her head and groaned. Everything felt predicated on the notion of fragility. Like it was a crime to wake Trixie up, as if she would shatter if stirred. Katya dug through her own backpack quietly, fishing out a pair of clean socks and kicking off her shoes. It was almost seven. That meant breakfast preparations had already begun. 

A jacket thrown over her shoulder, despite the fact that it would do little to shield her. Breakfast was dropped off at six in the morning by local aid in the school’s library, which was a separate building altogether. That meant traversing the school’s new, disastrous landscape, avoiding contact with hungry families in the shelter, running into the storm for a few minutes, and finally making it to the library. Pick up a pallet of food or two, cover it with her jacket, run back, and start the process all over again. Six or seven times, at the most. 

She leaned down beside Trixie, wrapping her arms around her knees and sighing. Maybe she’d sneak some food back. Ginger would mind. But Ginger could fuck off, too. 

And just as she stood in the doorway, ready to leave- 

“Katy?” 

The blonde lifted her head, rubbing her eyes as she rolled over to face the door. Katya felt embarrassed, for some reason. Like she’d been caught. 

“It’s Katya, Pixie. Kat-yuh.” 

“Mmm, whatever.” She yawned, sitting upright slowly and pulling the blanket over her head. Her gaze lazily washed over Katya’s frame. “Where are you going?” 

“...Y’know.” Katya faked a smile and shifted her weight a little. “Places with people to see people in places.” 

“...Too early for fuckin’ riddles.” 

“Sorry, Brenda. I’ll keep that in mind.” 

“Trixiiiiiie! My name is...mnnn...” Yawning again, she pulled the blanket further down and over her forehead. The whining tone curled around Katya’s head, wrapping tightly around her and refusing to let her go. 

Fuck, blondie was cute. 

“It’s almost time for breakfast. I have to go help the others prepare.” 

“Oh.” She sounded a little sad, almost. “Can I come?”  

“You wouldn’t want to,” Katya deadpanned, resting a hand on her hip. “It’s fucking awful. Plus, your hair wouldn’t dry for days if you went out in the rain with me.” 

“You have to go outside?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Gross.” Trixie shook over her blanket and sighed, moaning a little as she stretched to grab her bag. “You should...mm...” 

“Whatcha lookin’ for?” She watched closely as the blonde rummaged through her bag, pulling out a long piece of pink fabric. The blonde stood shakily, tripping over the mattress and stopping only inches away from Katya with the pink item in her arms. Her breath was warm. 

“It’s a rain coat,” she murmured. “Your coat...won’t do shit in the rain.” 

Katya’s eyes jumped between the coat over her own shoulder, the pink one in Trixie’s grasp, and the faded expression on the blonde’s face. She was out of it. Extremely. “...You’re still tired, aren’t you?” 

“Maybe.” Trixie dipped her head and looked away. Embarrassed. 

“Well, I. Thank you.” A quiet remark, her calloused hands taking the coat quickly. Trixie didn’t move, opting instead to look back down at Katya. “Is the real Trixie actually nice? Was last night a fluke?”  

“I just owe you. Paying back my debts.” 

Katya nodded, bringing a hand to her chin with a thoughtful look on her face. “So if I keep being nice, you’ll keep oweing me, and I’ll-“ 

“Just put on the jacket and go!” 

“Heh. Alright. You get some rest, Pixie sticks.” She quickly reached a hand out and ruffled Trixie’s hair, jumping a foot or so back before the blonde could reply and waving as she walked away. 

The jacket was long. It probably fit Trixie perfectly, but it made Katya look like three kids stacked on top of each other trying to get into an R-rated movie. She smiled to herself and shoved her hands in the pockets as she rounded the corner of the hall. Progress with the pink bombshell. Progress, nonetheless. 

The halls were long and daunting, with figures hiding in every shadow. Children, looking for bathrooms. Small pets being guided by fellow staff members that Katya didn’t quite know yet. Families with glazed over eyes, wandering the halls in search of nothing. The foot traffic, heavy and steady in its flow as Katya pushed against the crowd. The bright pink coat, floating through a sea of strangers. 

On the other side of the school, Ginger stood at the door with a clipboard in her hands, eyes wide at Katya’s frame as she approached. “Girl, what the fuck is that?” 

“Huh? I cut these bangs a while ago, Gingy, remember?” 

“No, no, no, I mean the jacket - did you sleep with the blonde girl already?” 

“Which one.” Katya beamed at the older woman, who huffed and held out the clipboard. 

“Stupid whore. I’m onto you.” 

“Can’t I have a LITTLE bit of fun during a hurricane! C’mooon, she’s cute, she’s probably single, and she liiiiiikes meeee.” 

“What gives you that idea?” Ginger muttered. 

“She gave me her jacket,” Katya stated proudly, puffing out her chest and putting her hands on her hips. 

The shorter woman stared at her. “Christ. You’re acting like a straight man.” 

“Mmm, sure. But it’s kinda like we’re in another world, right? She’s from some far-off town and I’m from here, so it’s not like I’ll ever see her again. Just a little bit of fun chasing some random doll in this world, and then I’ll go back to being your favorite chainsmoking librarian.” Trying to work her usual magic, Katya grinned and tilted her head. “Why don’t you try it, Ms. Minj?” 

“I’m a married woman,” Ginger responded dryly. 

“Ah. How boring,” Katya muttered under her breath. “Well...I know your shift ended a little while ago, but blondie’s still in our side room. You saw how late it was when she arrived, she’s dead tired. Stick around for breakfast, maybe? I’ll give you some of mine in return for the favor.” 

“Just for you to turn around and give the rest of it to your college fuckgirl? No. I’ll stay out for breakfast, but I want you to eat something,” Ginger said. She had good intentions. A sneaky way of telling Katya to fuck off while still caring immensely. 

“I would offer a smoke, but...I only have enough cigs to last me another couple days. I owe you some when the storm’s out.”  

“Make those last, Katya. I’d hate to see you on the fritz in the middle of a disaster.” Ginger shoved the clipboard into Katya’s arms. “Now, fucking go, Pinky. I’m hungry and if you don’t get food out soon, I’m kicking your blondie out.” 

“Thank you, Ginger.” 

“Oh, shit. Can I give a word of advice?” the older woman said suddenly, turning back to face Katya.  

“Sure, hit me,” Katya muttered. 

“I’d...” Ginger paused. “I’d, uh, at least pretend to be a couple if I were you. With blondie. I’ll mention it to the other staff, but...y’know. If people riot over trashcan placement, imagine how they’ll feel if they find out we’re picking favorites to house separately.” 

The shorter woman left without another word. 

Katya huffed, pressing her palms against her cheeks. Getting Trixie on board with that idea may be difficult. 

But it was the least of her concerns right now. 

She stepped outside with hesitation. Her hair whipped across her face, the winds strong and unrelenting.  The door clicked behind her. God’s fury lay the path to the school’s library, where food pallets had apparently been delivered. She shoved the clipboard inside her coat and ran into the wind, a hand covering her eyes as she bolted across the courtyard. 

The winds weren’t at their worst yet. In all of Katya’s years living in this town, she had a basic idea of how bad the storm would eventually be. But this one trudged on and on, with the outer wall hanging heavy over the city. 

They’d lose power tonight, for sure. 

The quick jog between the main building and the library was only hellish the first few times. Katya ended up leaving the clipboard with the few volunteers in the library, opting to instead deliver the pallets as quickly as she could. Rain became obsolete after her second run, and she almost couldn’t tell it was still pouring when she stepped into the library for the last time. 

An hour after she last spoke with Ginger, Katya shoved the last pallet into the far corner of an empty classroom. Others had brought fresh water and other drinks, but she had been told that he crowds were getting anxious about their meals. With a promise to start work earlier the next day, Katya slipped a bottle of water and a meal tray from the top of the piles, shoving them into Trixie’s jacket and heading out of the classroom. 

Trixie. 

What a refreshing break from the real world, that girl. Snarky and honest. Didn’t bother with ma’ams or anything like that at the desk. A fully realized character. Katya stood in front of the door to her side room, trying to gather herself. Shit, she liked that little blondie a lot. 

The door swung open suddenly, catching Katya off guard and almost sending her stumbling backwards. A hand snatched her wrist, yanking her back upright and directing her gaze to the eyes of the tall woman in the doorway. 

“Oh, you’re back?” Trixie tilted her head and smiled slightly, her fingers still wrapped around Katya’s forearm. She had tied the blanket around her neck like a cape, her hair messy and her eyes bright. 

The shorter woman blinked, her face practically lighting on fire. “W-w-what was the point of scaring the shit out of me like that?!” 

“I was getting worried about you.” 

“Aww, did I take too long? Did blondie start to miss me?” Katya purred, standing on her toes to try and get to eye level with the blonde.  

“Nah,” Trixie responded dryly. “You’ve been standing by the door and squeaking in that jacket for a couple minutes now. I thought it might’ve been a smoke break, but then I got concerned. What were you doing?” 

“Ah.” Hyping myself up to be the knight in shining armor, delivering breakfast for the damsel in distress? “Uhh, doesn’t fuckin’ matter. I brought you breakfast.” 

Trixie let go of Katya’s arm, her expression warming as she stepped away from the door. “We’ll split it, right?” 

“Like friends?” Katya’s eyes lit up. 

“Like people who are forced into surviving a shitty situation together,” Trixie retorted - but she still sounded happy. And she sounded like she wasn’t opposed to the idea. So Katya would take it.  

They sat together in the low light, and Katya was struggling with what to do. Working at a library was a quiet job with quiet people, where she had come to appreciate comfortable silence. She got on well with older folks and drunk girls who just wanted something for the night. Chatting up Trixie was a challenge for her. A trial-run, maybe to prepare her for the next blonde bombshell to waltz into her life. 

“What?” Trixie snapped, jerking Katya back to reality. 

“Huh?” 

“You’ve been staring at me for a little too long,” the blonde girl muttered, focusing all her might into peeling an orange. “What’s up?” 

“How old are you, Trixie?”  

“I already said no,” she deadpanned, not even looking up from the orange rinds.  

“Ah, no, that’s not my intention - I mean, I wouldn’t mind, but -“ Katya clamped her mouth shut. She was getting ahead of herself. This was hard, trying to be casual. “I just, uh...you’re interesting. I wanna know more.”  

“Didn’t you have my I.D.? I guess you guys really don’t look those over, huh.” Trixie popped an orange slice into her mouth and held one out to Katya. They sat across from each other on the ends of the mattress. It was a weird first date. 

“I just scanned it. Other people care more, I guess,” Katya murmured, chewing at the edge of the orange. 

“I’m a college freshman. That’s your hint,” Trixie replied.  

“Mmm...eighteen?” Katya furrowed her brows as she did the math in her head. Eleven years, then. That’d be a little strange. 

“Twenty-three,” the blonde said plainly, popping another orange slice into her mouth. “I started late.” 

Katya sat upright, furiously counting on her fingers. Six years! She smiled to herself. Six years wasn’t so bad. Almost seven - but seven wasn’t that bad, either. 

“How old are you, Katya?” 

“...You said my name right,” Katya murmured with a dazed look on her face. 

“I had to start someday.” Trixie’s tone was sweet and edging on something more. How nice it was, these icebreaker questions. Something Katya hadn’t done in years. 

“I’m twenty nine.” It felt like an awkward confession. Like maybe she should have more to show for her twenty nine years on this earth. 

“Ah. I see that. You’re not from here, are you?” The blonde was forward with her questions. “You slip into an accent when you...get flustered, I guess.” 

“Russia,” Katya replied, cracking open the water bottle. “If I get really angry, I’ll slip into Russian. Otherwise, I’ve gotten good at hiding it.”  

“Really? Why?”

“Mm. The red scare is live and well, Ms. Trixie. Wouldn’t want to scare of nice girls like you.” She could feel herself edging into her librarian voice. The kinder side of her. The only motherly piece of her left.  

“You aren’t scary,” Trixie said quietly. 

“Really?” 

“No. You’re just an attractive older woman with a cool accent. People are usually a little afraid of those.”  

“Oh. Alright.” Katya tipped her head back and brought the bottle to her lips, suddenly choking and slamming her feet against the tiled floors. She coughed loudly, bringing an arm across her mouth and hiding the redness rising on her face. “Wait, w-WHAT?” 

“Woah. What’s wrong?” Trixie raised a brow. 

“A...an attractive older woman, huh? Should I be pleased or upset with that?” Katya wheezed, rubbing her neck. “I’ve never gotten the two together like that.” 

Trixie reached a finger out, poking the Russian’s cheek. “You look pleased. And I didn’t say you were old. Just older.”  

“I’m a weathered librarian, you can’t say nice things to me,” Katya muttered, dipping her head. “I might end up strapping you down and marrying you.”  

“Or you could just get out more.” 

“I don’t need some slick college student telling me what to do-!!” Katya huffed, holding out the water bottle.  

“Shouldn’t you show me around more? You can’t keep your prize locked in here all day, y’know.” Trixie took a swig from the bottle and stood slowly. “I want to see what the rest of the shelter is like.” 

“Do you really? It’s a little crazy.” 

“I want to see all of it. I want to remember it,” Trixie said thoughtfully. “It’s...interesting to realize you’re living in something that you’ll probably remember for the rest of your life.” 

“Do you remember the people, too?” Katya asked. Hopeful. But not expecting much. 

Trixie paused, lifting her chin to meet Katya’s gaze. “Dunno. Maybe a few.” 

Her back prickled with excitement. 

Showing Trixie around was all the fun Katya expected it to be - and by that, she expected lots of entertainment from her guest, but not from the scenery. They stood in front of a glass wall, covered with tape and wooden boards. No view of the outside world, with time swirling past as they talked. 

“Maybe it won’t be so bad, y’know. Living in a gym,” Trixie began, daring to break the comfortable silence between the two. “I’ll get to know more people, I guess. Nobody really fucks with the freshman who’s as old as a senior, other than getting them booze. And even then, I fuckin’ drink alone like a sad grandpa. So I’m of little use.” She leaned her back against the brick wall of the school, looking thoughtfully at the glass and wood across from them.  

“I had already drank myself to hell when I started community college.” 

“A partying librarian, huh?” the blonde inquired, lifting a brow. 

“Oh, _bozhe_ _muy_ , not anymore. This librarian’s as sober as she can be. Designated driver, but for my own good.” Katya whipped her lighter out of her jacket pocket, letting out a sigh of relief as she brought a cig to her lips. “But you’re a kid. You wouldn’t give a shit about being sober.”  

“You act like you’re so old. 29 isn’t much older than 23.” 

“I’m coming up on the big three-oh real soon,” Katya muttered, playfully knocking Trixie’s shoulder. “I’ve heard that’s when I start getting a salt and pepper beard. So naturally, I’m excited.” 

The blonde didn’t say anything for a few moments. Maybe she was thinking about what Katya would look like with a beard? Or maybe she was thinking about how life would continue after this mess. Hopefully the former. Twenty-three years shouldn’t worry so much. Katya let her mind wander as she burnt through the cig between her fingers, her thoughts taking her down the dirt road that led to her house.  

“I don’t understand smoking,” Trixie finally said. 

“Calms my nerves,” Katya murmured, pressing the end of her cig into the wall behind her.  

“You seem so confident, though.” 

“You’re - you’re being sarcastic, right?” 

“You just seem like you have a grip on reality and you know what you want,” the blonde said simply. She shrugged before continuing: “I dunno, it’s just. I wish I had that. That kind of ‘fuck it’ attitude.” 

“I guess I only have it because none of this matters,” Katya muttered. 

“Wow. Harsh.” 

“I mean, think about it. Ginger is my only coworker at this shelter. Everybody else is at the other, what, six shelters in this town? So anything I do here is kind of...it’s without meaning. And after the storm ends, I’ll pick up the shards of my life and fuckin’ cram ‘em back together the best I can.” The older woman huffed. “I have no control. So I have to feed off of that and just do whatever the fuck I want. If it’s fun to be embarrassed and nervous, I do it. If it’s fun to be upfront and honest, I do that.” 

“What do you want to do now, then?” 

A flurry of ideas quickly whizzed through Katya’s head, moving far too quickly for her to pick and choose. She could tell Trixie that they might have to fake being a couple for their current rooming situation to not cause an uprising. She could tell the blonde that a week or so of casual hookups was definitely on the table if they could agree to the strange terms of their meeting. She could tell Trixie that she wasn’t used to this, that she was scared to say she was scared, that it all was so much to handle that she was sure to break sooner rather than later.  

She stood silent, looking at the useless cigarette in her hand before turning to Trixie.  

“I really...wanna go to the fuckin’ pet shelter?” Katya blurted out, dropping the cig. “Y’know. On the other side of campus? And like...pet some strangers’ cats and talk. And get to know you.” 

The blonde stared at her, her face warming as she smiled. “Really? Out of all things?” 

“I really am the poster child for sad, single lesbians, huh?” Katya wheezed, running her fingers through her hair. 

The halls were quieter at this time of day - most families were relishing in their last probable day with electricity, huddled around outlets and the remnants of the food they smuggled in. Classrooms filled with mattresses ready to be moved into the gyms, spare blankets and clothes and toiletries piled up atop desks. Their own world. Like hell wasn’t breaking loose outside. 

Once they made it to the doors of the blocked-off shelter portion of the school, Katya charmed her way through the volunteers and waved to Trixie as she pushed open the large, gray doors. It was exactly what one would expect - one classroom after another full of cages and loud, ringing noise. Dogs and cats and birds and maybe even a few pets that weren’t exactly legal, all singing the same song. Katya felt bad for them, knowing how confused they must have felt. And she winced at the pangs of guilt, thinking about her own cat in a car headed northward. 

Trixie took to a smaller white cat without a collar, pulling it into her lap when she sat on the floor and beaming up at Katya like a child. Katya oggled at a hairless cat perched on a desk nearby, gesturing to it wildly with wide eyes.  

“Look at this bald little fuck, I love her,” Katya hissed, hovering a hand over its back. 

Trixie choked on shrieks of laughter, quickly quieting down and apologizing profusely to the cat in her lap. “Don’t talk about her like that, she can hear you.”  

“Oh, she’s a model and she knows it. Fuckin’ look at this tail, raised to God Himself - Trixie, would you be mad at me if I stole somebody’s cat? A whole ass cat?” Her eyes shone with intent, commitment, and every ounce of follow-through possible.  

“I...K-Katya, I hate how serious you look about this,” she snickered, not looking away from Katya as the white cat began to crawl into her arms. “See, look, you’re making mine nervous!” 

“You can take her, too. We can start a family. Let’s run away together, Trixie. C’mon. I have a job, I’ll take care of the kids, I’ll be a great wife-“ 

“Let’s talk about this after we survive the storm,” Trixie coughed, turning her head away from Katya’s view.  

“...Oh, wait, shit, really?” Katya stepped away from the cat and closer to Trixie, leaning down to inspect her. “Are you - oooh, is Pixie Sticks embarrassed?” 

“No, NO, I didn’t mean-“  

Katya gasped. “You...I’m growing on you, huh?! Am I really?” 

“Like a rash,” Trixie spit back, waving a hand in Katya’s direction. 

Katya desperately wanted to keep teasing her, to see her turn red and stumble over words. Maybe she would, eventually. This storm would be long and grueling. Maybe, just maybe, she’d have enough time. Maybe luck would give her one opportunity.  

“You’re cute, y’know,” Katya murmured. 

The blonde huffed, inching away from Katya on the floor. She could see the tips of Trixie’s ears, with thick curls pulled back. Burning red. 

“Let’s be friends,” Katya said, quieter still. “All I’m asking. Friends.”  

“...That’s all you’re fuckin’ getting from me,” Trixie muttered, turning her head back even further. 

“Then should we not talk about the ‘running away together and stealing these cats’ bit after the storm passes, or...?”  

“Fuck off, you fuckin’ librarian,” the blonde hissed. “What happened to being all nervous and not getting out much?!” 

“Nothing. I never get out.” Katya straightened her back, groaning when it cracked, and meandered back over to the bald cat. “Do you get out much, Trixie?” 

“No,” she began. “I just...I go out for drinks, sometimes. And I do makeup for local theater shows and at a counter, but other than that - I just go to class.” 

Katya raised her chin and beamed at the blonde. “Would you like to?”  

“Like to what?” Trixie turned back to look at Katya, her face still slightly pink. Wearing off, though.  

“Get out more.” 

Trixie stared, her cheeks darkening. “Ah.” 

“With me?” 

“Ssshut up!” the blonde choked, burying her face in the back of the cat in her arms. 

Mm. 

Katya smiled. 

This would be fun. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed ❤️ Have a good week, take care of yourselves - I’ll hopefully be back with another chapter next weekend, but finals week is next week !! So if I don’t update next weekend, I should be back that following Friday.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and for the feedback last chapter !! It means the world, I love hearing from you guys ❤️
> 
> bozhe muy: my God


	3. The Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Russian translations at end of chapter ❤️

 

Tick. Tick. Gone.

Trixie opened her eyes to watch the lights overhead flicker out in the dark of early morning, her phone buzzing atop the desk by the door as it stopped charging. The haze and heaviness of sleep held her down, her body groaning as she rolled over in the mattress. Katya’s low and steady breathing, like a quiet hum in the newly silent landscape they were trapped in. Louder than the rolling murmurs of all fans in the school coming to a slow stop, the clicks of heating systems shutting off, and the moaning storm outside.

“The eye,” Katya had said to her in a firm voice as the blonde drifted off to sleep, a quiet gesture that Trixie could barely recall. “The eye is coming, Trixie. We will be okay.”

Everything felt less than okay, to be honest.

She thought about her mother, alone in an apartment run by shitty rentors who could easily abuse the kindness of an older woman. Her brother that she didn’t talk to in the military. All the parts of her family that led her to sitting in her car in a flooded highway.

How stupid. Her eyes watered and she pressed her fingers into her cheeks, her breath catching for a moment. How stupid could one get? What did she stand to gain? Would her mother have even wanted her there in the first place?

Katya stirred next to her. Trixie wiped at her eyes, huffing as she lay her head back down and pretended to be asleep, one eye half-open to watch the older woman awaken.

“Shit.” Katya cursed smoothly under her breath, looking up at the dark ceiling. “Motherfucker, why didn’t Ginger...” Trixie could barely make out the outline of shaking, calloused hands. “Fuck, fuck... _fuck_ , I can’t-“

She turned and her eyes landed on Trixie, pausing for a moment. Maybe it was fondness. Maybe it was worry. But her hands stopped shaking and Katya took a moment to collect herself, pulling her clasped hands into her lap her shoulders shuddering as she exhaled slowly.

“ _Budte_ _spokoyny_.”

Trixie wondered what that meant, despite knowing that she loved the tone. She rolled over on her back, whining a little to fake sleeping. The older woman seemed to smile as she lit a cigarette and leaned into her open palm, the cig hanging loosely by her jaw.

“ _Kto_ _ty_ ,” Katya murmured, the air smokey and almost soothing. Usually, Trixie would think it was fucking gross. But this felt different. This felt new. “ _Pochemu_ _ty_ _zdyes_? _Bozhe_...”

That last word meant God, and Trixie knew that for some reason. Trixie opened her eyes fully to see the dimly lit outline of Katya’s face.

“Ah. Good morning,” the older woman said quietly, her accent slipping as she switched to English.

“I...is it morning?” the blonde muttered, sitting upright.

“I’m. I’m actually not too sure, y’know.” A puff of smoke. Particles of ash backlit from the embers of the cig. “I think we lost power, sweet thing.”

Like it was spoken into existence and the second it left Katya’s low-lit lips, the circumstances became real.

“How much longer do we have?” Trixie asked, shifting to face the older woman. “Til it comes back, I mean.”

“Well,” Katya began, the hand holding her cig shaking a bit. “I’m not sure you’ll like the answer.”

“Just tell me.”

“Maybe a week. Maybe more,” she huffed. “A few more days of the storm. A few days of road closures and gridlock. We’re in it for the long haul, Pixie Sticks.”

“...But. That sounds awful. And gross.”

“You really are a child,” Katya muttered, but it seemed fond. A hand patted Trixie’s head - and then stopped for a moment, resting in the thick curls of her hair. She felt like a therapy dog. 

“...Katya?”

The older woman jumped a little, her hand ripping back to her side and accidentally running the cig over her knee. She cursed and clamped an open palm over the knee, holding her cigarette close to her face. Her expression was different, maybe because she was in pain. But there seemed to be something more.

“Katya...are you okay?”

“Don’t start caring about me, now. I’ll get ideas,” she whispered, a thin cloud of smoke drifting from her lips. Trixie watched the ash dissipate, her eyes following light so easily. The cast on Katya’s face. Katya.

“No, not the burn. I mean headspace,” Trixie said firmly, leaning forward. “Don’t fake-flirt to avoid the issue.” 

“Who said fake?” Katya murmured, the scent of her cig curling around Trixie. Closer, and closer still. Questioning green eyes opened to stare at Trixie, her eyes darting over the blonde’s face. “I can’t recall.”

“I did. Shut up,” the blonde muttered, waving her hand.

Katya pulled away, her breath loud against the walls of silence surrounding them. It felt a little surreal - the complete darkness, a world where everybody was asleep around them, the raging hell outside. She paused for a moment, tapping her pinky on the edge of the cig. 

“Can I confide in you, Trixie?” She lowered her voice and threw in a Bostonian accent. “Y’know, as a friend?”

“ _Howdy_. Why not,” Trixie quipped back dryly.

Katya hummed with thought. “Well,” she began, her tone dragging a little. “I...I suppose I’m afraid of what will await me when all is said and done.”

 “I’m sure your house will be fine,” Trixie murmured. Right. This was a lot more real for Katya than it was for her.

But then she took a moment to think of her mother, and maybe she changed her mind.

 “That’s not what I mean.”

“What?” The blonde tilted her head and scooted closer to the older woman, her hips bumping against Katya’s side. “C’mon, spill. Pal. Buddy. Friend. Par’dner.”

“I am afraid,” Katya said simply, “that I will grow comfortable in this world.”

 Another slow drag of the cig. The swirling smoke. The tiny sparks, the bump in her breathing, the world melting around them.

“And that my world,” Katya continued, leaning her head onto Trixie’s shoulders, “may grow comfortable without me.”

“W...what?”

“What if we just never left, huh? And this was life as we knew it? Would anything be different?”

Trixie sat in silence, the buzz of confusion settling over her. She’d never met someone who made her feel like such a stupid blonde before. Though it was interesting to think about their separate world, so far removed, with no concerns for politics or profession. And it was even more interesting to ponder the idea that the clock was ticking down until their day of departure - the last day that Katya and the shelter would be a fixture in Trixie’s life. When the older woman would become a passing memory, a concept tied to the notion of disaster.

Weird how quickly she had adjusted. Maybe that was Katya’s point.

“Or maybe I’m just a _stupid_ lebsian,” Katya quipped, the mood completely swinging as she lifted her head from Trixie’s shoulder and stood abruptly. The blonde squinted in the dark, the shuffling noises and soft light of the cig barely enough to direct her gaze to the door of the side-room.

“God, you’re fuckin’...hard to piece together, Katya. Where are you going?”

The door creaked open, and no light filtered through. “I have to go see Ginger,” Katya said quietly. “Y’know, I wanna make sure she’s doing alright. People are gonna be pissed when they start waking up.”

“L..let me go with,” Trixie stuttered, fumbling for her phone. She clawed at the desk as she stood, quickly flipping to turn on the phone flashlight. “I, uh...that cigarette can’t throw light well, I don’t think.”

Katya smiled warmly. And it felt foreign. “You shouldn’t treat me so kindly, Miss Thing.”

They walked together in the dark, and Trixie quickly learned a few crucial things about Katya.

For starters - Katya didn’t like when it was too bright. She avoided the direct shine of the phone flashlight, instead opting to cling to Trixie’s side. Maybe she didn’t like the dark, either. Katya also couldn’t walk on tiled floors in just socks. She slipped mutiple times, letting out half-shrieks and snatching onto Trixie’s arm to regain balance. And when the blonde shone the light down on Katya, her face was bright red with a blazing smile turned in Trixie’s direction - the endearing embarrassment that Trixie was a little too fond of.

In the end, Katya left a hand curled around Trixie’s bicep as they slowly walked down the halls to the main entrance. Ginger sat at the front desk waiting with a phone in her hand, the light washing out her face entirely.

“Fuck are you two doing awake?” Ginger grumbled as she shifted in her chair to face them. She paused for a moment before huffing. “Wait...only tell me if I’d wanna know.”

Katya puffed out her chest. “Lots ‘n lots of crazy, miraculous, and life-changing lesbian se-“ 

“THE PHONE. IT MADE A NOISE,” Trixie deadpanned loudly, slamming a hand over Katya’s mouth. “It made a noise when it stopped charging. A-and it woke us up.” 

Katya huffed. And then she licked Trixie’s palm.

And it was _fucking_ gross, but the blonde’s back prickled with something so foreign that it shocked her into standing still. Katya’s eyes widened and flicked over to her, then back to Ginger.

“God, poor girl,” Ginger chuckled. “You can join the main hall whenever you want.”

 Katya grinned, moving Trixie’s hand away from her mouth. “That doesn’t matter. Do you need help getting the generator out? Trixie’s a pretty face, but I have the manpower to get it running.” 

“Already took care of it,” the stocky woman said, fumbling to pull a lighter out of her pocket. “You two go back and rest. Prepare for the day to come.” 

“What’s...what’s supposed to happen?” Trixie asked, wiping her hand on her shirt.

Ginger barely raised her chin to look at the blonde, her fingers curled around a cig and her lighter. “Well,” she began, “we have about...sixty families here? And every group that comes in is a ‘family’, so probably around 200 to 250 people. All of them are going to find out that we lost power at the same time, probably. None of them will be happy about it. And they especially won’t be happy when we tell them the generator doesn’t power air conditioning.”

“Ah.” Trixie felt a little dazed trying to process it all.

Katya’s gaze darted between the two. “But, it, uh...we have things under control, Trixie, don’t worry.” She took the younger woman’s hand and smiled. “We’re gonna be okay.”

“...Whatever you say,” Ginger muttered. “Go before I get angry.” 

So they did. Katya practically dragged the blonde down the hall, her brows furrowed and her eyes planted on the tiled floor. Trixie let herself be dragged - partially because she was thinking, a little bit because she didn’t mind putting in less effort, but mostly because she didn’t want to break Katya’s obvious train of thought. She let herself wander. What would it be like, with no power? Sweaty, for sure. It was the middle of August. Would they run out of resources? Did they need to contact anyone for food? Was this the end of their decent luck? The more Trixie thought about it, the more she realized she didn’t know.

Dawn would break and neither Trixie nor Katya would notice, the pounding storm outside refusing to make way for the rising sun. They watched a pine tree outside crack and fall in the winds, eyes glazed until they realized it might be better to stay away from glass altogether. But Trixie noticed Katya’s stunned silence, her gaze following the tree as it snapped and fell, and the blonde could almost see the little house Katya certainly imagined being crushed beneath it.

“What’re hurricanes even like?” Trixie mumbled at one point, pulling her thick hair back into a ponytail.

Katya sat at the desk chair, blasting through smokes faster than usual. “It’s...it’s hell on Earth, Miss Pixie.”

“Yeah, but like...how hellish?”

“They make you think God is real, and it makes you question everything you’ve done. Like when a pet or a family member starts to die, and you think about praying for the first time in twenty years? It’s that feeling.” Katya let her cig hang from loose fingers, her eyes distant. “And you...you know that things won’t be normal again for a very long time.”

“What do you mean?” Trixie inquired, feeling similar to a kid hearing scary stories at camp. Like she was removed somehow. And it almost made her feel a little guilty.

“I...I took pictures the day I drove in to the shelter,” Katya admitted, exhaling slowly. “Of the town. The small little shops. Houses. Street lights and roads without remnants of roofs and houses. Because it’s all gonna change, y’know? Trees down and houses torn apart with powerlines strewn across the street.”

Hot guilt, steaming from Trixie’s ears. She thought for a moment, desperately searching for a new conversation topic. “...What’s your cat like?”

Katya perked up, a small smile crossing her face. “You _have_ to be gay. Or have gay friends. You can’t just finger your way into my heart like that, fuckin’ bringing up my cat ‘n shit-“

“Ewwww, stop talking right now!!” Trixie shrieked. “You just...you said you sent your cat away because of the storm.”

“Yeah. Dropped that little bastard off with some old friends who were leaving town. He’s a dumb little fucker - kinda like a mutt-cat? He’s all sortsa cats. He’s nervous, and he’s got these little eyebrows that help him look the part.” Katya crossed her legs and smiled. “Love him, y’know. I bet you would, too.” 

“Do you have pictures?”

“Phone’s in my locker, blondie.” The older woman flashed her teeth. “But I can fit you in my schedule if you wanna come see my pus-“

“NO, NOPE, SHE’S GOOD. ME. _I’M_ GOOD.”

“Fine. Missing out.”

 Trixie sighed. “You have a locker? Like real high school?”

“All the volunteers - or forced-volunteers - have lockers.” Katya looked at her open palm. “I have, uh. My phone. Tampons. And hella cigs.”

“How many?”

“Lots. Packs on packs on packs. You have to prepare in times of disaster, Pixie. I completely cleared out two gas stations on my way here.”

“Mm.” Trixie pulled her knees close to her chest. “I didn’t really think when I packed. I probably should have. Maybe thinking would’ve kept me out of this mess.”

Katya tilted her head. “We wouldn’t be having such an awkward and drawn out first date if you had thought more.” She raised her hand over her head and closed her eyes, the light of her cig glowing down on her hair. “Praise shitty decisions! The only thing that gets me closer with good women!” 

The blonde snorted. “Fuckin’ idiot. You wouldn’t know how to hit on women if you tried.”

“Hey, I’m - I’m great at hitting on women, okay? I just don’t wanna...y’know, sexually harrass the cute little college girl without gettin’ the a-okay from her. I’m holding back here.”

And in all the fear, the wavering weariness gone from Trixie’s voice from stress and sleep deprivation, she so naturally responded: “Do it.”

It was quiet for a long moment.

Trixie’s eyes fluttered in the dark, watching Katya slowly lower her hand. Not really a dare, perhaps more of an open invitation, or a slight admission that things were different given the circumstances. That any other day, Trixie would have stayed at home - designing or painting facecharts - but with the world ending outside, she craved the tiny bit of attention that some random woman was offering her. Even though it was undoubtedly short-term, that this attractive older woman wouldn’t want anything to do with Trixie when she had to return home, and that if their relationship culminated in anything, which it wouldn’t have the time to do, it would be purely physical.

 Pent up might have been the right word.

Also: super fucking exhausted. It wasn’t that Katya wore her down. It was that Trixie had let go of any notion that she was above doing something like she thought Katya wanted.

But the older woman paused, her mouth hanging open before she spoke.

“...Would it ruin the moment to ask the logistics and thought process behind this decision of yours?”

But suddenly, that tired feeling slipped from Trixie’s body. And she was less bold, less willing, and needed an out. A comedic one, maybe a joke at her own expense, to make Katya laugh and forget about it.

“Y-y’know. I’m the practice round, right? Didn’t you say that?” She fake-laughed, pulling her hair back. “I, uh, hahah...I’m already used to being the practice round for most people, sooo...”

Empty. Quiet. Puffs of smoke.

“I didn’t mean-“ 

Katya was cut off by a knock on the door, and she groaned loudly. As dramatically as she could, she swung up from the chair, kicking it against the desk and grumbling as she cracked open the door. “Ginger, it better be _REAL_ fuckin’ importan-“

And then the older woman flew backward, falling onto the mattress and practically on top of Trixie. She grabbed at the blanket thrown to the side, pulling herself upward and panting as she turned to look at Trixie. Katya looked both startled and fearful, alarmed beyond measure, and messy as all hell. The blonde couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“What the hell-

“There’s a fuckin’ _kid_ , Barbie. Like a ghost, a little ghost _demon_ kid, fuck no, absolutely not, I fuuucking refuse-“

“What?!” Trixie stood and stuck her head out the door. She could see the outline of a child, standing in the empty halls. Trixie approached slowly, crouching as she went.

“What the _fuuuuck_ does it want,” Katya hissed, hiding behind their room’s door.

“Bathroom,” the child murmured, wiping at his eyes. Trixie, with all her limited experience in childcare, smiled and extended a hand.

“Hiya. I’m Trixie.”

With no intentions of saying his name, the kid stood silent before stepping forward and taking hold of Trixie’s fingers them, grabbing them at such a horrible angle that Trixie almost immediately pulled her hand back.

 “Did you think it’d fuckin’ shake your hand, Pixie sticks?”

“Shhhhhhuuu- do you want me to take you to the bathroom, kid?” Trixie turned her back on the door, looking down as sweetly as she could at the child.

“...Breakfast lady.” He pointed at the sliver of Katya’s face peaking out from behind the door. Katya’s face visibly went blank when the kid gestured to her, her gaze immediately jumping to Trixie in search of an out.

Trixie continued smiling. “Mhm, that’s her! She helps bring us food every morning, isn’t she great?” The blonde brought a hand behind her back, motioning at Katya to step out from behind the door. She obliged, quietly and sternly walking to stand beside Trixie.

“...Breakfast lady lives in a bathroom?”

Oh. Kids were so wonderfully stupid. “No, no. This is our room,” Trixie whispered. Like a secret. 

The kid said nothing, just tilted his head to the side. His gaze darting between Trixie and Katya.

“You do realize what this means,” Katya muttered.

 Trixie raised a brow in her direction. “Mmm?”

“We either have a pair of frantic parents running around looking for their kid, or we’ll have to go into the gym.”

 The gym.

Trixie had heard bits and pieces about the mystical place. Tall ceiling, hardwood floors, like a regular gym, but with a sea of mattresses strewn across the floor. A countless amount of faces, all strangers to a tourist like her, milling about, sharing food and chargers and clothing. Police officers standing idly by as small riots broke out and eventually calmed themselves down. It seemed like a place where nothing was sacred.

“That’ll be fine,” Trixie murmured, half to herself and half to Katya. She could hear the older woman huff.

They walked quietly, Trixie leaning down to hold the little kid’s hand. It was weird to think that less than a week ago, she was sitting at her local bar, watching people slam down shots as the bartender eyed a weather map showing the oncoming storm. Now, she was acting as a pseudo-mother alongside a complete stranger.

Maybe not a complete stranger. She had to stop thinking like that.

“He’s old enough to go on his own.”

So they stood outside the bathroom, their backs pressed against the wall, trying to ignore the awkward silence that fell between them.

“...Maybe we should, uh...find out his name?” Trixie suggested quietly.

“Nah. Don’t wanna get attached.” Katya flicked her lighter open. “I finally learned your name, and look where _that_ got me.”

Heading back to the main room in the gym was like a death march. Trixie couldn’t explain her fear of the place other than the fact that she was, at heart, an old man from the country. She liked the secluded nature of their sideroom, how quiet Katya often was, and the whisping smoke that filled the air. A giant room full of countless people, all feeling that same whirling confusion that she did, seemed like hell. And when they opened the doors, those feelings were fully realized - it was hell, it wreaked of hell, it looked like hell, and it sounded like hell.

It felt otherworldly. The small beacons of phone lights, angered whispering of parents quieting kids trying to come to terms with the lack of power, and the loud slamming of rain on the roof. Katya took the hand of the kid, walking into the crowd before picking him up and getting him to sit on her shoulders. She looked back at Trixie, frozen in the doorway, and waved. But when the blonde didn’t move, Katya didn’t get angry or march back over - she smiled, and it was faint, before heading further into the crowd. Taking one for the team. Like Trixie didn’t need to communicate the obvious discomfort, and it wasn’t too obvious - Katya just knew. And that was nice.

Nice enough to fluster her a bit, honestly.

Trixie huffed and let the doors close behind her, stepping tentatively into the crowd. Finding Katya wasn’t hard - she still had the kid on her shoulders, but she was chatting with an older woman. Trixie stayed away for a moment, only gaining the confidence to join them when Katya moved to put the kid on the ground.

The boy jumped to the older woman’s side, catching Trixie’s eye. They had two mattresses, with an older fellow - his dad? - asleep on one and a group of three young kids scattered across the remaining surface area. The boy seemed to be the oldest of the children, and his mother was apologizing profusely to Katya.

 “It’s no big deal,” she said quietly. “Honest, he’s fine. We’ll have breakfast out for you soon, alright-“

Katya jumped at Trixie’s touch on her shoulder, the blonde smiling sheepishly when Katya whipped around. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to...I could’ve brought him over,” she muttered.

“Oh. Oh, no, it’s fine - I checked in him and his mama, I kinda remembered them, so everything’s alright,” Katya said quickly, gesturing towards the door. “It was faster this way.”

And under her breath, she muttered: “ _Go_. _I_ _can_ _handle_ _shit_ _from_ _here_.”

A gentle voice, soft and mild, interrupted their silent conversation: “Ah, is this your wife?”

Trixie blinked.

Wife.

She turned to Katya, who was frozen for a split second before smiling. And she laughed, a little nervous, so perfectly emulating what Trixie wished she could act like in this situation.

Wife?

Her face flushed, eyes widening when Katya grabbed Trixie’s hand, locking their fingers and leaning her head on Trixie’s shoulder. And the blonde just let it happen, her heart slamming against her skin with each moment that passed.

“Da, da, this is, aha...Bozhe muy, y’know, we aren’t suuuper public about it- anybody could be here, thinking anything,” Katya said, winking at the older woman. “I hope you understand.”

“Nonono, it’s alright! I apologize. You don’t have to worry about us. I appreciate all your help.” The mother seemed like a kind midwesterner. “Sorry for keeping you.” She nudged the boy beside her.

“Thank you, Breakfast lady.” His eyes trailed over to Trixie. “...And Mrs. Breakfast lady.” 

That probably would’ve been cute under any other circumstances. Trixie thought it best to not speak, so she didn’t, bowing her head to the older woman and her son before Katya said her goodbyes and pulled Trixie away. A swift exit, with Katya only letting go of Trixie’s hand to make sure the gym doors closed quietly and didn’t wake everyone inside.

“Now. Look,” Katya said tentatively, turning to face Trixie. “I. I know. Okay? Looks bad. But-“

Trixie grabbed her hand suddenly, catching Katya off guard and pulling her down the hall to their room’s door. “Not. In front. Of everybody,” she hissed, opening the door and gesturing inside.

“No, seriously, just-“ She put a hand on Trixie’s shoulder, and it was just a little too warm, a little too sudden.

“I, I don’t know what the fuck kinda - I know you were talking about living in another world, and I get it, this doesn’t feel real to me either, but that doesn’t mean-“

“Bozhe, solnyshka muya, calm down-“

“No? I don’t want to?” Trixie whispered, exhasperated beyond belief. “And I’m - maybe I’m so tired that this just isn’t making sense, and maybe I’m also still pissed off that you called me a fucking trial round for when you meet other girls and I shouldn’t be upset about it but I am, and then you turn around and fuckin-“

“PIXIE STICKS.” Katya put another firm hand on her shoulder, pressing her against the wall and staring at her. “The little kid mentioned that I lived with some Barbie-looking woman in the bathroom.”

“And?”

“I’m a fucking volunteer, I can’t just keep friends in my room with me,” Katya said quickly, her voice hushed. “All hell would break loose if the people staying here found out I was letting a girl stay in my room because I think she’s cute, alright? I can’t pick favorites, but I did, because - well, fuckin’, god dammit...” She trailed off, her gaze raking over Trixie’s face for a moment. “Look. Just. We don’t at all look related. So you’ve gotta be my wife, okay? Ginger told me it’d be best.”

 “I...”  

“We don’t have to act too wife-y, y’know? Not unless you want. It’s just...fuck, if you wanna go back to the main room, you can go. Take the mattress, I’ll sleep in the desk chair.” Katya pulled away, crossing her arms and avoiding Trixie’s gaze. “I should’ve told you about the whole being-married thing before just running with it like that. I’m sorry.”

 Trixie stared down at Katya. And she saw her eye twitch, her pointer finger tapping incessantly on her elbow, and a wave of nervousness wrack the woman’s body. Katya was caught. Caught between the distant reality they faced and their own perception of this separated world, where their actions weren’t supposed to have consequences. A frank reminder that things she said mattered. And a deliberate blow to her upfront attitude, even hinting at the possibility that maybe Katya wasn’t always so bold in the ‘real’, pre-hurricane world.

“C...can I ask...why you didn’t say I was your girlfriend?” Trixie asked slowly.

The finger tapping paused for a moment, and Katya closed her eyes as her face darkened. “It’s so stupid. You’ll laugh.”

“C’mon. You owe it to me to be honest.”

“B...because...” Katya inhaled shakily. “IneverthoughtI’dgetmarriedsoitmakesitlessrealforme.” 

“...What was that?”

“If I said you were my girlfriend, it’d kinda freak me out!” the older woman blurted out, furrowing her brows with her eyes still closed, face turned away from Trixie. “I never thought I’d get married. So like...i-it feels less real and less hopeful to say I have a wife.”

“Instead of a girlfriend?” Trixie asked quietly.

“Mhm!” Anxious. Nerves. Katya seemed beyond her, uncomfortable and fragile for the first time since Trixie had met her.

And the blonde had to stifle laughter. Behold, the guns-a’blazin’ lesbian librarian who was so careful and cautious with her word choice as to not be imposing with the girl she was so aggressively flagging down. 

“Alright, then.” Her voice was gentle, with the obvious southern twang she could never shake. “I’ll be your wife.”

Katya’s eyes opened, her head whipping forward to look at Trixie.

 “W-what?”

 “Say that again?” the older woman asked.

“I’ll...” For some reason, it felt different. “I’ll...be your wife.” 

Katya hummed quietly - and just like that, that aura came back. The actions that lacked hesitation, the personality that never hinted at what she felt or wanted. “I think I might like how that sounds just a little too much.”

“Shut up, you dumb bitch!”

“Maybe I will get married,” she continued, stepping past Trixie and back into their room. “And we could tell everyone that disaster brought us together! What a lovestory, eh?”

 _Are_ _you_ _always_ _so_ _bold_ , _Katya_?

“Isn’t it more of a lust-story? Does your flirting have anything to do with love?” Trixie asked quietly, not even really expecting an answer.

But Katya popped her head out of the doorframe, scanning Trixie up and down a few times. “Well,” she began. “It didn’t start that way, but it might end up there.”

Trixie buried her face in her hands, sighing as she stumbled into their room and fell back onto the mattress. “You’re gonna kill me.”

“Mm. Maybe. But you’re my wife, so that’s be uxoricide. Killing my wife before she’s even my wife? Insanity,” Katya said simply, letting out a quick tongue pop as she leaned down the put on her shoes.

“What do you mean before?”

“I’m up for doing things backwards,” Katya responded, not even looking up from her shoes. “With the way things are going, we might have to.”

 “Wh...” The blonde moved her hands from her face. “What does that mean?!”

“If I can’t convince you verbally that I’m worth your time...I could always offer to prove it in other ways. A few exes would be able to offer rave reviews.” Katya flashed her teeth and stood before Trixie could respond, cracking her back in the doorway. “I should probably head out for the breakfast delivery. Angry, sweaty people are bad enough. Hungry-angry-sweaty people are worse. Be back by noon.”

“W..w-wait-“ Trixie’s eyes bulged from her head as she thought over Katya’s words. “W-what do y-“

 “You said I could talk like this,” Katya murmured, leaning down to Trixie’s eye-leel. “And I don’t talk like this with practice rounds, not from what I can remember. Since that bothered you so much, apparently.”

 Trixie blinked, eyes wide when she opened them again to see Katya beaming down at her. Didn’t talk like this with practice rounds? Yet Trixie couldn’t shake the feeling that Katya didn’t talk with anyone like this. But most importantly, she didn’t want the older woman to leave.

“But this still isn’t the real world, right?” the blonde breathed.

“Eh. Who can ever say for sure?” Katya gave her that same confident smile.

 “Mmm.”

  _Do_ _you_ _have_ _to_ _go_?

 But Trixie couldn’t say that, for some reason.

 “Take care of yourself, _kotenok_. I do believe the eye is here,” Katya murmured, ruffling Trixie’s hair as she straightened her back. 

“...You’re gonna go out in the eye?” Trixie asked.

“The eye is when it’s quietest. It’s not scary, it’s just the really strange calm moment, where the world is still and it doesn’t feel like the world is ending. Like your last breath of air before something really big happens, y’know? Might even be able to see the sun - I just need to beat the outer walls again.” Katya pulled her hand away. “How sweet of my wife to worry, though.”

“Shuuut up, your wife is confused!” Trixie whined, slamming her back against the mattress and covering her face again.

Katya’s eyes lingered over the blonde for a moment. “Stay safe, _dorogaya_ ,” she whispered finally before swiftly departing, closing the door quietly behind her.

 Trixie’s head would wander for a while, alternating between rolling around on the mattress and partially suffocating herself with her blanket. She was in college now, she should be used to this. Somebody deems you fuckable, they make a move. But this move felt so delicate and planned, and it was with a fuckin’ attractive questionably-foreign woman? And she was a mock-wife now?

Prove it in other ways. Said so innocently, like Katya didn’t know exactly where the fuck Trixie’s mind would go. And the attention, god dammit, it was nice. Trixie sighed, giving over to the realization that she enjoyed it. Selfish and almost like a teenager, she loved being courted like this. She was a twenty-three year old who was tired, confused, and - honestly - pent up after all the stress and confusion. And Katya was a woman with short nails.

And a stare that said a lot more about her intentions than her words.

And a slight accent when she spoke quietly yet sternly.

And rough, calloused fingers.

The blonde sat upright, her face still pressed into the blanket.

 Fuck.

There had to be bigger things to be worried about. There was a fucking hurricane blasting outside. Trixie lay back down again - maybe she could sleep it off. Wake up brand new, a fresh take on Trixie, a refreshed state of mind.

 But Katya would be back eventually.

 The blonde winced.

 She wasn’t going to sleep it off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone !! Thank you so much for tolerating me in my absence, finals whooped my ass ❤️ I missed you all and I missed writing, I’m excited to get back into it, and I hope the world’s been treating you all well. Thank you for reading and feedback is always encouraged - and a heads up !! I don’t believe this story will be sfw for much longer. hehe ❤️  
> budte spokoyny: stay calm  
> kto ty: who are you?  
> pochemu ty zdyes: why are you here?  
> bozhe, bozhe muy: God, my God  
> kotenok: kitten (endearment)  
> solnyhska muya: my sun  
> dorogaya: darling


	4. Upstairs

Katya sat outside, and it smelled like spring.

Earthy, humid, damp - reminiscent of regular smoke breaks between shifts at the library when the old scent of books and elders became too much to bear. The eye lay heavy above, wind still gusting against Katya’s cheeks and spraying small droplets of rain across the landscape. It was uncomfortably calm. Quite literally the calm before the storm - so cliche that it almost pissed Katya off - to the point where she could see sheets of gray in the far distant, like thick curtains of rain over the empty roads.

It felt so nice to get away. She shuddered and pulled the coat Trixie gave her tighter around her shoulders, letting out a shaky breath against her cigarette. The morning shift was more hectic than usual this today, and there was something she hated about the oncoming crowds. Katya, standing alone at the end of the hall with the last pallet of water bottles, frozen in time. At the curve of the hall, a growing number of slow-moving strangers, all faces she’d seen once but hadn’t bothered to remember, with empty, long-gone eyes. A hundred coyotes and a single rabbit.

Katya had thrown the pallet and run. And she felt a little ashamed - those people were hungry, not zombies - but it was a physical response that bubbled from deep within. She hated it, the noiseless crowds, the hazy feeling of reality becoming more and more distant, and the eeriness of being so alone. It felt like everybody knew her purpose: to bring food. But they knew little else, and that scared her. The eye of the storm was always a little unsettling, anyway. A peaceful breeze in the midst of disaster. She hated it, she fucking hated it - but it let Katya take a break from countless forgotten interactions she was bound to panic her way through and the consequences of circumstances she herself created.

“She’s my wife.”

So thoughtless.

_So_ fucking thoughtless.

It was Katya’s subconscious way of shifting her hand across the mattress, moving a hand onto Trixie’s forearm. A self-destructive notion, one that was sure to push the bimbo Barbie of Katya’s dreams out of her grasp. Almost like its what she meant to do. The wrong time, wrong place, wrong state of mind. Wrong person, too, to be honest. So she needed somebody else to say no, she needed Trixie herself to say no.

But Trixie was a different kind of mad, because Katya was sure she was mad. It was burning, soft and furious underneath the surface, tickling her skin.

_I’ll_ _be_ _your_ _wife._

Those words were delicious. The southern twang, the soothing nature of what seemed to be this new Trixie, the girl who finally let her defensive walls fall down. It brought back that nervous twitch, the last time a foolish iteration of Katya had let loose and fallen deeper into a woman than she felt comfortable. And she wrote it off as a firey lust, because she had to, she wanted to, she needed to. With a final deep drag from her cig, Katya stood abruptly. She had to go inside. She had to face Trixie again.

Her reflection seemed bleak against the boarded-up glass of the door, drowning in the giant pink raincoat. Deep-set, sunken eyes. Bright white teeth, her arms covered in small bruises and scrapes - those crates and pallets were wooden today, and they weren’t fucking around. Katya paused with a hand on the door. Leaving the light of day was difficult, and all she wanted to do was bring Trixie outside. She knew where her car was in the parking lot - all she wanted, that whisper that echoed in every pore of her body: run away and don’t look back. But she opened the door slowly, sighing as she shuffled down the empty halls.

It was a small city, a refugee community. An old lab-room was transformed into a waiting room with medical staff. There was a makeshift nursery. A local teacher who Katya faintly recognized had gathered a group of children in a classroom with books and paper. The loud orchestra of animals could be heard from anywhere in the building, hot and steaming. She brushed at her forehead as she walked down the hall, slipping off the jacket and dragging it behind her before turning the corner to see her room’s door, shut tight.

Odd.

Katya approached quickly, knocking before cracking open the door. She was worried, for some stupid reason. “Trix?”

“Not here, wifey,” a voice grumbled as Katya flicked on the light. The older, stout woman sat upright in the mattress, rubbing at her eyes.

“Ah, Ginger. Fucking raccoon, you’re not who I wanted to see.”

“Didn’t really wanna see you, either,” Ginger groaned. “Look, I had to break the news to those sheep that we couldn’t use the generator for a few days, so I need to fuckin’ sleep. I had to kick your girlie out. She’s probably upstairs, I’m sorry.”

“S’okay. I’ll find her. Did they take the news well?” Katya asked, leaning against the door frame. She missed Ginger a bit. Having opposing shifts meant no time to chat over smoke breaks - and maybe it explained her evolving fascination with any woman she could get her hands on.

“No. Of course not. Fuckin’ threatened me, said I was being selfish and unfair or didn’t understand their circumstances...and we had to kick out that drunk lady who tried to sneak in wine.” Ginger rubbed at her eyes. “I told her three fucking times that we were a no-alcohol zone, but...ugh, I’m not supposed to feel bad about it.”

“You’re a bad bitch who shouldn’t feel anything, Gingy.”

“I just feel empty,” she huffed. “I wanna smoke and you stole a pack from me. I’m gonna die here.”

Katya raised a brow. “I didn’t steal shit. I haven’t been to my locker since blondie got here.”

The older woman let out a sigh of defeat, falling back onto the mattress. “Who cares, anyway. I just have to stretch these out. Lord be with us over the next week - and Lord be with you if you don’t fuckin’ let me sleep, alright?”

Without a word, Katya nodded and closed the door, pressing her back against the wall beside it. This felt strange - she wasn’t technically bound to Trixie in any way, but this may be Trixie’s first time wandering the halls alone.

That creeping sensation of unease. She shouldn’t be worried. There weren’t that many places to hide, and Trixie seemed limited in her ability to handle crowds. Tucked away in some classroom somewhere - Katya could imagine the blonde feeling calm alone. She meandered down the hallways, quietly stepping upstairs and past the tired guards who knew Katya all too well.

Upstairs was an interesting place. It was where Katya’s locker was, she knew that for sure, but it was also where contraband and large posessions were stored. Bottles of wine and whiskey, scattered hapazardly across desks and floor. Emptied cigarette boxes, small plastic bags with a plethora of pills. She skipped a little as she walked, tip-toeing through what felt like miles of pieces to her locked up memories.

“Trixie, Trixie-Pixie...are you mad at me?” Katya swung her head into an empty classroom, her eyes falling on tipped over desks and chairs. She sighed, shaking her head and continuing down the hall.

“Did you go back to the main hall?” Katya murmured under her breath as she walked, her gaze swinging from side to side. “Did you tell them I lied? It’s okay to be upset, I...I would be, too.”

She slowed her steps, hopping back a foot or two to see Trixie’s frame standing by a window in a large, open room in the middle of the hall. Katya tilted her head, resisting the urge to smile as she stepped into the room. The blonde didn’t move, her chin lifted to the gray skies, like she was amazed to find the one clear view of the world outside. Proof that it was all still out there, pulsing with life.

“I don’t think you should be standing by an un-boarded window, Dolly,” Katya said quietly. “Seems like a bad decision.”

Trixie jumped a bit, stepping back and turning her head to just barely see Katya in the door. She smiled a little, nervously shifting her weight to face the older woman. “Sorry.” A nervous tick, scratching the back of her neck. “I just, uh...it’s wild out there, huh.”

Katya stifled laughter. “It’s a hurricane, kid.”

The blonde groaned and covered her face with her hands, turning back to the window. “I’m not good at this...Fuckfuckfuck, I’m awful at this-“

When she peaked from between her fingers, Trixie jumped to see Katya right by her side. “Awful at what?”

“G...Ginger told me to go upstairs because it was quiet and I don’t fuck with people too much, but...” Trixie sighed, averting her gaze. “It was lonely, and. I don’t like it when things are too lonely.”

“So not too crowded, but not too quiet?” Katya mused, lifting a hand to play with the longer strands of Trixie’s hair. “You’re complicated, miss thing.”

“Is that so bad?”

“Oh, no - I like it a lot, actually. Makes me seem normal.” Katya leaned against the window, eyes glazing over a little as the storm picked up outside. “The eye made me feel a little lonely, too. I’m not used to smoke breaks alone.”

“The eye’s the halfway point, right?” Trixie asked. “And didn’t you just say to not...be so close...”

“The eye’s nowhere near the halfway point,” Katya replied with a smile, holding her hands out to the blonde. “We have days on days of no electricity, no leaving, no restocks, and road closures ahead. And even still, farther down the line, we get to make do with what the storm has left for us - house or no house, job or no job, on and on.”

With slight hesitation, the blonde took her hands. “I’m sorry,” she murmured quietly. “I wish I knew what the fuck that felt like.”

“I’m glad you don’t. And I’m glad I don’t either - I’m preoccupied, you see,” Katya mused, entwining their fingers. “Isn’t it funny how things like that happen?”

“I wonder what in God’s name you’re distracted by,” Trixie muttered, rolling her eyes. “Distracting you from your whole world being torn apart.”

“Not much to tear apart. I enjoy this romp through fantasy - but I must admit,” Katya began, her tone dancing as she spoke, “that it’s fun how real this all feels.”

“You...sure do feel real, you old hag,” the blonde coughed.

Katya beamed up at her. “Wow, the strength of my seduction really knows no bounds, huh? Have I cornered you, hmm?” She leaned in close, bringing a hand to Trixie’s chin and holding their locked hands out to the side. “You can’t tell me you didn’t come up here to get me alone.”

“Ginger...said it’d be better,” Trixie whispered, her breath caught in her throat. “And...a-and y...”

“You didn’t think about my offer?” Katya pouted, tilting her head.

“Ugh...the puppy-eyes don’t work for you, stupid whore.” With a swift movement, Trixie snatched her hands away. But Katya could see the burning tips of her ears - and it was cute. 

“Do you want me to tie your hair back?” Katya asked after a moment of silence between the two. “I’m a lesbian, I’m good at braiding hair. Truly a lady’s woman, at heart.”

The blonde inhaled slowly, dipping her head and nodding. Katya immediately got to work, pulling a desk chair up for Trixie to sit in - facing the strengthening view of the storm outside - and pulling the long strands of hair out from the back of the chair. Pulling a handful of scrunchies from her forearm and pocket, she began running her fingers through Trixie’s hair and separating it into different parts along her scalp.

“You’ve got a lot of this shit, miss thing.”

“Mm. It was a bob when I was little,” Trixie said quietly, the red in her ears darkening when Katya wheezed at her remark.

“It’s really pretty. A real life doll, you are - but like, the new ones. Not the ones I like,” Katya hummed.

“What do you like? Possessed ones?” Trixie chided, turning her head a little before Katya firmly placed both hands on the blonde’s temples and moved her head back into its original position.

“The master is at work. No moving. Absolutely none, no ma’am.”

“You do realize you’re braiding a hairdresser’s hair, right?” 

“Ah, you do hair?” Katya asked casually, trying to salvage the braid that she dropped.

“Hair, makeup, a bit of designing...I dunno. No wonder I’m broke and gay,” the blonde sighed. “All of us are.”

“Wait - you’re surrounded by pretty gay broke women at all times?” Katya sucked on her teeth. “ _Solynshka_ _muya_...I’m in the wrong career, aren’t I?”

“No. No, it’s mostly men, but I think you’re down the right career path. I bet you’re a good librarian. You have that kinda cool-librarian voice,” Trixie said.

“So a sex-line operator voice? That’s what you mean, right?”

Trixie fell silent for a few moments, the redness of her ears refusing to fade.

“It’s because of the accent, isn’t it?” Katya continued, smiling a little as she toyed with the blonde locks.

Trixie covered her face with her hands, letting out a shaky sigh.

“ _Kotenok_... _ya_ _tebe_ _nravlyus_ , _verno_?” she murmured, leaning closer to Trixie’s neck. “Covering your face when I can’t even see it, _milaya_. _Milye_ , _milye_.” 

“What’s that mean?” the blonde whispered.

“Wouldn’t I have said it in English if I wanted you to know?” Her face practically hovering over the crook of Trixie’s neck, hands tying one of the braids and letting it fall against her back.Hot breath in the humid air, sticking to the baby hairs sticking straight on the blonde’s neck. “And would you really have rather I said it in English? _Bozhe_ _muy_ , _nyet_ , _ya_ _tek_ _ne_ _dumayu_.”

“ _Nyet_ \- no? And...b-bo-she...is God.” Katya marvled at how tiny Trixie’s voice had become. Adorable.

“Mmm. _Prava_ , you learn quickly. _Umnaya_ _i_ _krasivaya_.” She let her fingers run over the back of Trixie’s neck as she began the last braid, wiping off a small bit of sweat. Every movement felt intimate, a delicate closeness that Katya hadn’t fully adjusted to - but she loved it. And she knew that intimacy was fleeting, so she had to get every last drop of it she could.

But Trixie was bold for her: “T...tell me what that last bit means.”

“I would’ve said it in Engli-“

“I don’t care,” the blonde murmured. “I want to know. Tell me. If I’m your fake-wife, you at least have to listen to me.”

Bossy. Katya’s eyes widened, her expression brightening.

“ _Umnaya_ _i_ _krasivaya_ ,” she said, thickening up the accent with full intention. “Smart and beautiful. A rare combination. Usually it’s easier to be beautiful and stupid - and sometimes you’re stuck with ugly and stupid, I’m a fine case study - but you were so bold and selfish in choosing to be both. A crime against the hearts of fragile women like me, truly.”

“If ‘fragile women’ like you claim me so early on, I have no chance,” Trixie huffed. “You flirt like a man.”

“Then teach me how, _solynshka_ _muya_.”

The blonde paused for a moment. “No. I want to save other women the horror of having to be chased by you.”

“Then teach me how I should flirt with you,” Katya said plainly. “Even if it’s simply to stop.”

“Ah.”

Katya hummed as she finished up the last braid, letting it fall and waiting for the blonde to respond. “Or, could it be true, my darling _devushka_ ,” she said, “that I already know how?”

Quiet. Baited breath, and pure quiet.

“...Do you know when we’ll get to use the generator?” Trixie asked, finally willing to break the silence. Katya pouted, taking a moment to think before answering.

“ _Skoro_. _Zachem_?” she responded quietly, standing and moving to sit on the windowsill in front of Trixie. The blonde’s face was tinted pink, Katya’s shadow falling over her darkening cheeks.

“I...I still can’t speak Russian, believe it or not. And I’m sure Ginger’s told you,” Trixie said, turning her head a little as Katya reached downward. She took hold of the blonde braids, pulling them from Trixie’s back and letting them fall on her chest.

“ _Skoro_. Soon. _Zachem_? Why?” Katya smiled. “We scummy Russians do love a woman in braids. And blonde hair is a coveted treasure, _muya_ _zolotaya_ _devushka_.”

Red cheeks, red ears, reddening shoulders. The older woman leaned back into the window, beaming down at Trixie.

“It’s,” Trixie began, lowering her chin and looking downward, “really hot up here. Th...that’s why.”

“Oh.” Yeah, she was right. It was the middle of summer, and it wasn’t like Trixie could strip down much further -she was wearing a thin camisole and pajama shorts, her skin slick with the glow of sweat. Katya’s gaze slowly swept over the blonde. The leveled embarrassment, the sweeping feeling, the bubbling warmth in her stomach. She could drink up every last bit of it, pawing at the thought of Trixie in her head. “Well, I...Heat does rise, _kotenok_ , so it’s no surprise. Maybe I should keep you busy up here.”

“Whyyy, that’s crueeeel-“

“If you keep whining like that, I’ll really keep you busy up here, _krasavitsa_ ,” she murmured quietly, her voice dipping as she leaned forward. “Little brat.”

“You could’ve said that in Russian, too, y’know,” Trixie teased, leaning forward to match Katya’s stance. “Or did you want me to understand that one?”

“I needed you to, _solnyshka_ _muya_.” She tilted her head. “So what is it, then? A voice kink? Do I really sound that much like a dominatrix? Nobody’s ever told me that, _kotenok_.”

Trixie shrank back, her sudden boldness replaced by a certain timid nature that Katya found delicious. “N...f-fuck do you mean by that?”

“Nothing much, then. I just don’t wanna bother you, make you uncomfortable at inopportune moments, y’know. _Ne_ _vui_ , _nikogda_ _ne_.” Katya smiled. “I’ve worked hard on my American accent, but it comes and goes sometimes. _Pryamo_ _kak_ _ty,_ with that cute little Southern shit. _Derevenskaya_ _devushka_.”

“What...what does that mean?”

“Aaah, _derevenskaya_ _devushka_ _muya_. My country girl. Russian always sounds a little sexier than it is, doesn’t it, _kotenok_?”

“...What’s that one mean?” Trixie inquired, a little less feeble this time. Katya beamed at her, eyes bright as she realized what path she was walking down.

“ _Kotenok_ means kitten, _krasavitsa_ _muya_ ,” Katya murmured, hold out a hand to the blonde. She took it, standing slowly.

“And that?”

“Mm, that one’s a little more complicated.” Warm, soft hands - a shocking juxtaposition to Katya’s cold and calloused fingers. Thick skin. Older joints. “ _Muya_ is a general word for my or mine, while _krasavitsa_ is beauty.”

“...Kras-ah-veet-sah moy-ah...means your beauty?” Trixie asked, tilting her head. Soft curls fell from her braids, dropping around her cheeks. A soft southern girl at heart. Shit like this wasn’t usually appealing to Katya. Didn’t fuck with her heart like this did now.

“It doesn’t sound as romantic when you say it like that,” she pouted. “It’s not my beauty, like this ugly Mr.-Burns-lookin’-ass face...it’s like calling you mine with an attribution. Unendingly beautiful as you continue to be mine - and now I just sound creepy, _bozhe_ _muy_.” Katya tilted her head. “It’s a miracle you put up with me. _Paradoks_ , even - I bet you can figure out what that means.”

“I told you you flirt like a man,” Trixie laughed. A loud laugh, genuine and ringing. Huh. Huh, this was really it.

“And you laugh like a man,” Katya remarked. “I need to teach you more Russian. Your accent, _ya_ _lyublyu_ _eta_.” She sighed. “But I guess that’s assuming you’d say cute shit to me in Russian, huh...”

“If you only taught me how to say cute shit, I’d never learn how to call you an asshole.”

“Mmm. You know how to do that well enough in English, don’t you?”

“I like to think I do.”

Katya fell quiet for a moment. She didn’t know why. It was a bubbling sensation, like maybe she was supposed to respond coyly or casually in a way that made her seem uninterested. The dance they were supposed to follow, as if this were real life in any capacity. It was a sudden yet expected thought: there was no casual way around what she wanted, this didn’t feel like a regular hook-up, and Trixie couldn’t be real. She wanted to be laced into a love affair for as long as Trixie would have her within the storm’s arms. Life within the confounds of tragedy, it had a way of bringing the theatrical parts of Katya’s imagination to life - the parts that somehow dreamed of Trixie’s existence in her life outside of the hurricane.

“I like being at eye-level with you,” she said finally, lifting her gaze to meet Trixie’s. “Never realized what an Amazonian bitch you are.”

“I never liked being taller...but, I mean, if it impresses you, I guess I’m fine with it.”

There, there it was. That shyness that Katya didn’t know was genuine or not. The floating feeling, like dragging one’s feet over the ground in a swing. So close to stable ground.

“Trixie, can I be really honest with you?”

The blonde smiled nervously. “Yeah?”

So Katya snatched her forward by the hem of her camisole and kissed her.

Their hands breaking, Trixie’s frozen as Katya slipped a hand under the blonde’s jawline and the other on her waist. Warmth with a touch of humidity, not too unbearable, and the amount of softness that Katya would’ve expected given the bravery. Country cinnamon and a little bit of orange. She smelled good, god dammit, she even smelled good.

Katya broke away somewhat quickly, gaze darting between Trixie’s wide eyes as their foreheads met. Sweat. Quiet, quick breath.

“I...I’m sorry, it just felt like something we were avoiding-“

She was cut off. And she loved it. Her hand trailing upward, burying her fingers in the messy blonde mop of hair and she pushed up the thin material of the blonde’s shirt. Kissing Trixie felt right, though she wasn’t keen on kissing hookups. The blonde leaned into Katya’s frame, exhaling when the older woman hiked up a knee. Satisfied. It felt correct. The thunder rolled beyond outside, rumbling through the earth as the heavier sounds of rain picked up. Sheets of rainfall slamming against the roof, the room darkening slowly when the two separated again.

“... _Kotenok_ ,” Katya hummed, smiling and chuckling a little under her breath. The blonde’s eyes flashed with something distant, letting out a small whine when Katya pulled a hand away from the upper half of her torso. “You do know that the door behind you is still wide open, right? And everyone will hear if I...mm.”

“You what?” the blonde breathed.

“You seem noisy, Barbie. Are you?”

“Depends on the circumstance,” Trixie replied quickly and quietly, her voice small. “What would...uh...”

“Fucking you and eating you out ‘til you start losing your voice and forgetting your name,” the older woman quipped plainly, her voice monotone with stronger hints of her slavic side.

Trixie stared at her.

“What?” Katya asked, tilting her head. An internal celebration - she still had it in her to pull a line like that. 

“We. You. Youuuu, you are going... to do your volunteer shit, and I’m gonna be with you, and the second - and I mean THE second - Ginger leaves, I. I. _We_.”

“Kinda wanna fuck you now, though.” She beamed at the blonde. “Can you imagine what people would say? Maybe they’d think there’s a ghost up here. A ghost or two. Wouldn’t that be fun - sexy ghosts, oooh...” 

“You - I’m not, I’m not stopping - but you shouldn’t, even though...Katya I’m...” Trixie exhaled slowly, leaning forward and pressing her head into Katya’s chest as her voice shrank. “I am so fucking tired and overwhelmed and hot and I just want your fingers _specifically_ inside me as soon as possible.”

“Soon. Promise, _solnyshka_ _muya_.”

Something looming over Katya. A presence. A feeling, a tapping sensation on her shoulders. Of what this might be and also most definitely wasn’t. Of the honesty she rarely conjured, the want to bend the back-country Barbie over any of these desks in the room and make her melt.

But, like a giddy teenager, Katya could feel her face warm, and one thought came to mind: if Trixie would fuck her, that means that she might...like Katya.

And how delicious that thought was.

Trixie lifted her head a moment after Katya spoke. “Sol...neesh-ka, what does that mean?”

The older woman urged Trixie’s chin upward, leaning down to kiss her again. Again, that word was a welcome gift.

“ _Solnyshka_ _muya_ , Trixie. My sun.”

Trixie.

Her face glowing with sweat, her eyes half-lidded and her skin a dark pink. Hair stuck to her forehead, one of the braids undone and leaving curls drapped across her shoulder. A mix of aroused, intrigued, maybe a little confused -

“That one’s really cute,” the blonde murmured. “I like it.”

And she smiled. And it was delicate and soft and sweet and Katya never wanted anybody else to see it.

“I’ll have to keep that in mind, then,” Katya said quietly, marvelling at Trixie in a way that she hoped wasn’t obvious. What an easy switch between sweet and sex, a quick transition and a melding of the two worlds Katya once wanted to keep so strictly apart.

_I want to fuck you until you’re real. I want to show you off like you’re real. I want you to be real. Can I tell you that?_

But as long as Trixie was warm and soft and nervously bold and quietly flawed and real enough, Katya could keep the outside world and its growing worries waiting just a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCK I swear I didn’t mean to take a holiday break OR to write a full chapter of shitty flirting mixed with a tiny bit of voice kink for literally zero fucking reason. Though there’s a tiny hint of a future plotpoint, I guess - woo story building and lesbians braiding hair !! Real gay next chapter, oh boy hell yeah etc etc. 
> 
> Hehe, either way, I hope you all enjoyed, thank you for reading, and I hope to be back SOONER than last time with the next update. ❤️ Love you all, take care of yourselves, and feel free to leave feedback !!! (Oh, and happy New Year !) 
> 
> Russian translations:  
> I’m gonna be real with y’all. If it’s important, it’s translated in the chapter. Otherwise, just assume Katya’s saying some cute shit to fluster her blondie even further. I might come back to edit this, I’m just tired as hell right now and can barely muster English on its own.


	5. The Ceiling

That lonely, traipsing feeling. 

Coming out wasn’t an effervescent or whirling act for Trixie. It was quiet and slow-paced, almost casual in a way. Unnecessary at its core for her, lurching with a nervous feeling that she knew wouldn’t exist if she lived a life with a touch more solitude. Her leering midnight monster, clear in its frame with cold breath and seering eyes. Grabbing everyone she passed by the shoulders and hissing: “You know she’s gay, right?” with low breath and heavy tone, dragging along in her shadow.

Trixie tossed herself onto the mattress and lay still, eyes wandering across the popcorn ceiling. Like little stars, constellations she could draw out with her fingers. A hand extended, she traced circles and outlines of dogs or mountains in the rough texture, enjoying the small bits of thoughtlessness.

Maybe this was what she wanted. 

It was easier if people knew. It was fun, being teased forward and led on by women. Being chased by a lady with a rougher accent - she wasn’t opposed. But what was so loud about Trixie that made Katya comfortable doing so? Did she wear her hair too fem? Was she too brash and upfront? Was she an easy target?

She squinted and outlined a stick figure with her pointer finger, grinning to herself. Maybe this could be the ether she needed. No work, no worries, no clocks to carry her home or thoughts of where home really was. Maybe when she left this world, with thick brick walls and humid air, she’d stop getting her nails done. Trixie let her finger hang in the air, staring at the chipped and cracked acrylic nail. She wondered why she ever had them done in the first place.

“... _Shtoh_...”

Trixie jolted forward, eyes wide. Katya’s head was peaked around the corner of the crack in the door, a brow raised with an incredulous smile on her face.

“Uh. Do I even wanna know?” the older woman asked slowly, coughing back wheezes.

Trixie stared up at Katya, huffing. “Just. Y’know. The ceiling.”

“Man, Trix, if you stole any prescriptions from the contraband room upstairs, you should’ve shared,” Katya hummed, her voice curling around Trixie’s frame as she sat before the blonde. Close. Closer than usual. Thoughts of Katya pressed against the window upstairs, her fingers dragging down the blonde’s jaw.

Just how long had she been waiting? How long had Katya’s shift lasted?

“No, I didn’t-“ Holding a hand out, Trixie realized she felt defensive.

And for a split second, she wondered why.

“I know,” the older woman purred, reaching out to toy with one of Trixie’s braids. “Straight-laced Barbie girl wouldn’t dream of it, huh?”

“Can. Can I ask you something?” Trixie sputtered, letting her hand fall on Katya’s shoulder. She loomed over the blonde, a firm confidence in how close she was. 

“ _Da_ , go ahead.”

“How did you know I was gay?”

Katya raised a brow. “I, uh. You...asked me - was that a fever dream? Did I imagine you asking for these rough, man-fingers inside your-“

“NonoNO, I mean - you know what I mean, you stupid whore,” Trixie groaned. “Before. Like. Why did you start...the whole wife thing, and all...”

“Mmm...I could say lucky guess.” She shot Trixie one of her dazzling, shit-eating smiles. “Maybe I willed it into reality. Though, you being straight isn’t a challenge I’m unfamiliar with.”

 “How many straight girls have you seduced?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She could feel Katya’s rougher fingers toying with the hem of her shirt, a softness in her expression. 

It bothered Trixie how much she actually wanted to know. It bothered her how easily Katya could, with a click of her slavic tongue, have all of Trixie’s intrigue centered on each delicate movement. It bothered her that there was a chance that Trixie being here was simply a placeholder for somebody more frequent in Katya’s life. And it bothered her that she knew so little about the older woman who, despite all odds, seemed so keen on having her way with Trixie while time stood still.

“Yeah. Actually,” Trixie murmured, dipping her head.

“Mm. Convince me to tell you more, then,” Katya said.

Trixie stared at her for a moment, quiet.

And then she slipped her shirt over her head, tossing it to the side of the room and pulling her braids over her shoulders. 

“Ah.”

Katya blinked.

“Is that enough for you, old man?” Trixie huffed.

“I fucked maybe like two straight girls in community college when they were experimenting and one or two who broke up with their boyfriends when I bartended and they needed somebody to hatefuck and give them a ride home,” Katya slurred, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a hurried flutter.

“And what would I have been?” Trixie tilted her head, smiling a little. It was almost cute, the muffled embarrassment. What a dog Katya was. The scale had shifted slightly in her favor. 

“The really hot cheerleader type that I never could get my hands on in high school,” Katya mumbled, forcing her chin upward to meet Trixie’s eyes. “The bratty girl who never looked my way and whose attention I couldn’t work hard enough to earn.” It was obvious how intentional her stare was.

“I didn’t take my shirt off for you to marvel at how pretty my eyes are,” the blonde scoffed.

“It’s more comfortable to think in a straight line instead of having every thought punctuated with the question of how to make you twitch.”

“Then why am I wasting my time?” Trixie sighed, looking away from the older woman. 

In almost an instant, Trixie’s back was pushed into the mattress, a palm pressed firmly against her collarbone. Hot breath, inches away from her face, and a seering gaze from a half-lidded stare. No air conditioning for days, and everything about the world surrounded Trixie felt like pure, unfiltered heat. The candles she had lit hours ago sitting atop the desk, burning low. Sweat. Skin. Exactly like she thought it would be. 

But with Katya’s knee pressed between her upper thighs, she couldn’t help but shift a little beneath the older woman’s grasp.

“Fucking a brat like you takes time,” she murmured, her nose almost drifting over Trixie’s. “If I give you too much, you take so quickly. And if I don’t give you enough, you’ll disappear on me. But if I give you enough to string you along,” Katya continued, further pressing her knee between the blonde’s legs, “I get to watch you melt just so.”

“And why would you want that?” Trixie breathed, her back arching as her hips bucked against Katya’s leg.

“ _Bozhe_ ,” Katya said quietly, “who wouldn’t?”

Hair in her mouth. The unsettling, wet feeling of skin sticking and unsticking. One of Trixie’s braids fell out, and God knows how dumb she must have looked. But Katya didn’t mind. Of course, she didn’t mind.

“ _Solnyshka_ _muya_ ,” Katya murmured into Trixie’s lips, trailing down her neck and chest. It was almost a relief when her bra was slipped off - to such an extent that she almost questioned why she wore it at all - and her hands messily dug into Katya’s hair. “You aren’t very good at acting straight.”

“That’s - that’s why I’m not,” the blonde whined, biting her lip as the spandex of her shorts was tugged down to her hip. 

Barely lifting her lips from skin, Katya dragged her gaze over Trixie’s frame to meet “Then why’re you so worried?”

“I’m not worried,” she huffed, covering her eyes with an arm. “Just...curious?” She squeaked, jumping as Katya dug her thin nails into the flesh of her hip. That rush. Particular and yet so messy, flowing over as Katya trailed back up to the crook of the blonde’s neck. 

“Stupid lesbian,” Katya teased, her tone deepening as she spoke. “ _Tebe_ _povezlo_ , _shtoh_ _ty_ _krasivaya_.”

Trixie leaned her neck forward a little, rolling her back upward to curl around Katya’s frame. Wrapped tight around every word, every breath. This is what she wanted. Doomsday welcomed with open arms, Katya boiling from below. It started and ended with letting go.

 “Mm...what’s...what’s that one mean?” Trixie slurred, her accent thick, words dripping like honey from her lips as Katya pulled forward and lifted her gaze. Her hand snaked up to Trixie’s cheek, pressing into the sweat and warmth on her cheekbone. 

“ _You’re_ \- _lucky_ \- _you’re_ \-   _so_  - _pretty_ ,” Katya breathed, accenting every word with a pull at her panties, a pinch to her hip, and finally - god dammit, truly finally - she gave in to Trixie’s panting, pushing down the front of her underwear and dragging a finger across her clit.

“Nn, _fuck_ ,” from gritted teeth. 

Teasing her, back and forth. Trixie’s breath hitched as she leaned into Katya’s chest, her hips herking with each movement. Close. Skin. Closer, closer, as close as she could. The thin mewl curling off her lips growing to a thick whine, and she pressed her face into Katya’s shoulder as the older woman continued to tease her.

“K-Katya, please... _please_ , just...fuck...” 

Fuck, that felt different. Rough and with intention, yet always a little surprising. Trixie’s eyes widened as she pressed inside her, shutting them tight immediately to avoid Katya’s expression. And yet, when she finally did open her eyes, Katya seemed amused. Affectionate and gentle almost, a smile tugging at her lips.

“Just one is enough for you, _solnyshka_ _muya_?” she murmured, low and quiet. 

“N-no, I-!” 

“My little virgin Barbie,” she teased. “Feel alright?”

The blonde nodded, inhaling sharply as Katya moved her free hand to help balance Trixie. The touch on her bare back felt as intimate as anything. The sixteen year old in her that dreamt of shit like this was living - but now as a full-grown woman in her early twenties, she was in complete disbelief.

Not like she had time to think about it, though.

“I’m guessing you don’t have somebody who takes care of you like this, then?” Katya murmured, leaning in cheek-to-cheek with Trixie, her mouth only an inch or two from the blonde’s ears. Her hand moved slowly at first, her free fingers pressing into the flesh of her inner thighs. Curling around each movement, her hips moving without thought and a hand thrown carelessly over Katya’s shoulders. 

“N...n-no, I don’t...” Trixie let out a shaky breath, her face darkening as Katya pressed her into the mattress. Without warning, she felt a sudden tightness between her legs, twitching as Katya’s free hand laced its fingers with Trixie’s. Firmly held down. Controlled like a marionette. 

That same, warm breath. “Would you like someone, _kotenok_?” 

Trixie’s grip on the older woman’s hand tightened, moaning as she bucked against the rough palm. The offer, open and plain, written in fine ink in Trixie’s head. A contract that she didn’t have the time to think through, her body at the mercy of Katya’s control.

“Y...ye...I, I don’t know,” she whined, her eyes half-lidded as Katya moved to hover just above Trixie’s coiled frame.

Sloppy kisses and desperate movements, gasping against Katya’s lips. Start-and-stop sentences, whines and whimpers quieted. Disgusting and dark, humidity and sweat, all with a delicate glow. God, this woman was stupid. So fucking stupid, _stupidly_ good at what she did.

“ _Bud_ ’ _moime_.” A quiet plea, hushed and calm compared to Trixie’s erratic breathing. The breath against her ears. 

“A-ah?” 

“ _Ya_ _k’vashim_ _uslugam_.” 

“Katya, sto- fuck, stop, ‘s not fair-“

“Shh, _solnyshka_ _muya_ ,” she hushed, their clasped hands drawing closer to Trixie’s side. Not like she had any way of stopping it. “So easy to get a reaction from you, _krasavitsa_.” 

“P-please, just fucki-“ Trixie cut herself off with a quiet whine, pulling her hand from Katya’s to throw over the other shoulder. She bit her lip and arched her back, letting out a sharp breath. “I-I’m gonna-“

And then in an instant, it all collapsed.

Katya’s free hand flew to Trixie’s cheek, pressing her fingertips against her neck as her lips came crashing against the blonde’s. Her twitching frame, swallowing moans and gasps, legs shaking as she held onto the older woman. Safety, entropy in its entirety whirling around Trixiw as she collapsed against her palm. A flurry of slurred words and thoughts. A worrying feeling, washed over so quickly as she felt the tension in her back loosen. Holding onto something beyond the two of them, and watching it so delicately float off and away. 

Even as it all subsided, Katya wouldn’t let her go. Warm and reassuring, like lovers probably did. Pressing her deeper into the mattress, through the floor, and floating. Off somewhere, there was everyone else. Right now, just the two.

She finally pulled away after a few moments, her thumb tapping against the back of Trixie’s hand. Like a high school student, she laughed - and it didn’t sound too real - when she was feeling shy, low and throaty.

“Sorry,” Katya muttered. “You just...seemed like you’d be loud.”

“S..selfish of you to keep it to yourself,” Trixie panted, pawing at the front of her button down shirt.

“Mm. Wish I didn’t have to quiet you down,” she said quietly, sitting upright as the blonde covered her face. When Trixie opened her eyes again, she saw Katya running her tongue across her fingers, slow and steady. She winked down at the blonde when she noticed her staring. “Maybe next time I won’t have to?”

“N...nex, next? Haha...f-fuuuunny...”

Katya leaned down, Trixie’s face darkening as she got closer. “You think I’m gonna let a doll go who cums honey that quickly?” 

“M-maybe, ah...maybe you’re just that good at what you do,” the blonde murmured, her fingers clumsily working away at the top button on Katya’s shirt. “I’m not...y-y’know, I...go easy on me, Christ.” It was instinctive, little to no thought applied to her actions. Fluid movements, doing exactly as she thought she should do.

Everything about it seemed messy. One of Katya’s hands buried in the curls of Trixie’s hair, pulling strands from her braids, the other pressed into the mattress beside her ear. Spit, sweat, everything ugly. Kissing her was guided, dragged onward as her fingers further entangled in her hair, Katya’s torso hanging so close over Trixie’s bare skin, and that tantalizing feeling. Moving, even if only slightly, but moving always. Trixie tugging at the older woman’s collar, a smile creeping across Katya’s cheeks as she bit the blonde’s lip. 

“ _Needy_.” Scolding, so unlike the warmth of Katua’s tone. 

“I know.” The response was gasped between parted lips, a slight reprieve. Katya hummed and pulled away. 

“Look, miss thing,” the older woman huffed quietly, wheezing a little as she spoke. “As much as I’d love for your little moisturized fingers to absolutely ruin my life...” Trailing off, she laced her fingers with one of Trixie’s hands again.

Trixie blinked up at her. “Ah. Uh...uh-huh?” 

“Not with them fuckin’ nails, Dolly.”

Trixie groaned and fell back onto the mattress, covering her face with her hands. “I...fuuuck, I knew I shouldn’t have gotten them done...”

Katya pulled away, moving to sit beside the mattress. She leaned her jaw into her palm. “You’re lucky. Usually it’s lights-out when I cum. Get what I need and fuckin’ leave.” 

“Why am I getting special treatment then? Am I that pitiful?” the blonde grumbled, peaking between her fingers to look up at Katya. 

A soft expression. Warm and glowing. “Why,” she began, “isn’t that what a good wife is supposed to do?”

Trixie rolled over onto her stomach, sighing. Hiding her face despite the darkness, masking the burning sensation at the center of her cheeks. What was she doing? Why was she doing this?

“Mm. What’s wrong? Am I better than the boyfriend who still thinks you’re straight?” 

“I don’t have one of those,” Trixie muttered.

“Really? I’m not a disaster-slam-piece?” She leaned down and arched her neck, meeting Trixie’s gaze when the blonde lifted her head. “I don’t get pretty girls like you unless they’ve had their hearts broken.”

And then she paused. 

“No, actually. I just don’t get girls like you at all.” 

“Well _luuuucky_ you, old man,” Trixie whined, rolling onto her side away from Katya. “Bagging a country college girl. Wow. What a feat that was.” 

She felt warmth on her shoulder. Lips, softly pressed, and the motion of Katya shifting onto the mattress beside her.

“And you got fucked by an old librarian,” the older woman said simply, the words muffled by Trixie’s skin. “Tell all your friends about that.” 

“They’d be surprised I got fucked at all.” 

“Ginger’s always surprised at what I manage to pull in.” She seemed a little proud when she said it. 

Trixie turned to face Katya, raising a brow. “I don’t think she’ll be surprised about this.” 

“No?” Katya pushed a freed curl out of Trixie’s face, her fingers hooking around the blonde’s ear with her thumb rubbing against her jaw. “You think she thinks I could fuck you?”

“I think she thinks we’ve been doing this for a while,” Trixie hummed.

“I think she thinks _you_ think that I think I’m full of shit,” Katya replied dryly. 

“I think she thinks that you think that _I_ think you’re a stupid fuckin’ whore,” Trixie mumbled, and Katya wheezed into her palm.

 Ah.

It felt so distinctly good to make her laugh.

Maybe it was the least she could do in exchange.

Katya sat forward suddenly, fishing through her pants pockets and pulling out a cig. Lighting it quickly, she took a slow drag, eyes drifting over Trixie’s frame. 

“Maybe I could’ve bagged you either way,” she murmured, gaze falling on the crack between the floor and the door.

“What do you mean?” Trixie asked, leaning forward to sit beside Katya.

The older woman let out a puff of smoke and sighed, grinning just slightly. “Oh, that’s a dangerous trail of thought to explore. Hypotheticals and nastiness, when I already have you sitting right here.” She turned her head to face Trixie, jaw backlit by the candles to her right.

This felt weird.

And then Trixie recalled that word - that hung so gracefully over her head, looming delicately in conjunction with the warmth and oozing softness she had previously felt. Melting over her, the idea and realization:

The art of being the trial run.

The practice round. Before anything real wven began, the whirring cogs and distant memories or having a chance to start again. So willing to make mistakes and be selfish if you could so easily hit reset. Forgotten as soon as the tutorial ended, flowing with the streamlined course ahead, never really important in the long run.

She didn’t want to be forgotten.

 With sudden courage, Trixie leaned forward, pushing Katya backwards and knocking the cigarette out of her hands. The taste of tobacco and smoke, boiling from within and curling around her body. Rushing to arms, the closeness, the bitter taste, like all her friends from work said - “the first drag you take, you’ll feel like a _dragon_ ”. And she drank it in, free hand pulling back the older woman’s thin hair. Pressure, pushing back against her, fingers entwining with the ones that knocked Katya’s cig away, one running up her thigh. The high school romance she’d always wanted. The cool upper-classman in her study hall, ruffling her feathers just before class. Slammed up against the bathroom walls, hidden in a stall, quiet words and muffled moans. The rushing memories of her younger self’s daydreams - maybe it was a fool’s errand to ride that wave once more. 

“ _Khrabry_ ,” the older woman purred as they parted, her nose drifting over the blonde’s. “ _Ne_ _zastavlyay_ _menya_ _vlyublyatsa_.”

Trixie ducked her head, her face only darkening when the older woman pressed her lips against her forehead.

“You act like a 40 year old husband who wants to start treating his wife better,” the blonde whispered.

 “And you kiss like a high school girl who wants to know what love really is,” Katya hummed.

“And what’s wrong with not knowing?!” Trixie huffed, her hands dropping to her knees.

“Nothing at all, _solnyshka_ _muya_ ,” Katya murmured. “You’d probably make a much better lover than I. But doesn’t it have something to do with getting over your hatred of cigarettes to kiss me?”

Trixie froze for a moment.

“Fighting through twang of menthol and ash because perhaps - maybe, even so - you already know what it means to you.” 

The blonde held a finger up.

“You wanna seduce me!” 

Katya raised a brow. “Eh?”

“You wanna tell everybody you’re my wife so that I’ll go along with it, you’ll fuck me when I need it to make me feel comfortable, and swoop in and steal my heart without any whiskey involved!” Trixie barked quietly, suddenly firey with conviction. “You’re even telling me I’m in love! Isn’t that, like, so obvious?”

The older woman stared at her, her mouth hung open slightly. And then she smirked, tilting her head back as she threw her hands up. 

“I know when I’ve been caught.” 

“If you ever wanna try it on some girl at your library, it’ll never work!” Trixie gasped.

She didn’t even know what she was doing. Maybe it hurt a little bit. Maybe if she played into the role of the tutorial round, it would hurt a little less.

“Then what would you suggest I do, _solnyshka_ _muya_?”

“Mmm...do it right!”

“What am I to do,” Katya murmured, her face drawing closer to the blonde’s, “when the world is ending around us?”

“I mean...pretend we’re in the library. I’m a customer - a patron? What do you call library visitors - either way. If you like her, do things that make her tick. This ‘you’re in love with me, aren’t you’ brainwashing shit is so blunt.” Trixie nodded. “You gotta let her realize first.”

“It’s weird taking advice from you knowing you were a virgin less than twenty minutes ago. And your shirt is still off.”

“Don’t make the girl you’re targeting feel less than,” she responded, her voice low.

“Did I at least do this well?” Katya asked quietly, her finger sneaking under the elastic of Trixie’s panties and snapping them against the flesh of her hip.

“Shut _uuuup_...” Trixie moaned. The older woman sucked on her teeth and smiled, leaning forward to kiss Trixie’s cheek before standing.

“I’m gonna go for a smoke, just so you don’t actually end up leaving this place with cancer.”

“I might have to have a shirt on when you’re back,” the blonde muttered, leaning back onto the mattress.

“Poor, poor me,” Katya wheezed, cracking her back. “Ah. Pixie Sticks?”

“Yeah?”

“Just what was it you were doing with the ceiling when I came in?”

“Ah.” Trixie couldn’t help but smile. God, how stupid. “It’s, uhm...with popcorn ceilings? Y’know the kind?”

“Yeah, where it’s all fucked up and speckled, sure.”

“I like to connect the dots. Follow the ridges and make shapes, spell things out, you know. Like constellations and stars -  I used to do it a lot as a kid, waiting around to fall asleep. And I guess I decided to do it now, waiting around fo sleep with you.” The blonde snorted at the thought. How quickly things change.

“Ah...” With the door half-closed, Trixie could see Katya cover the lower half of her face with her hand. “ _O_ , _bozhe_. How cute.”

“I can show you how when you come back!”

Why was she so excited at the thought?

The hand slipped from Katya’s mouth. Ears tipped red, a soft smile drawn across her face - gentler than any Trixie had ever seen. Lit well by the fading candles, a delicate image of Katya appeared.

And with it came that spark. The one Trixie’d been waiting for all night.

“Yeah,” the older woman finally said, letting the door click behind her. “Please, I’d love that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello. stupid lesbian is back. university hit me like 18 trains. but i’m back with a loud gay vengeance. 
> 
> ANYWAY, hello!! I missed writing so, so much and I’m so, so happy to be back! I have the general plot of this fic storyboarded and we might be about halfway there. (Though I always say that, and then write 20 extra fluff chapters lol). emotionally prepare for embarrassed katya, it’s all i wanna write next. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed ❤️ I love feedback, please don’t be shy !!
> 
> bud’ moime: be mine  
> ya k’vashim uslugam: i am at your service  
> ne zastavlyay menya vlyublyatsa: don’t make me fall in love  
> kotenok: kitten  
> solnyhska muya: my sun  
> krasavitsa: beauty, beautiful one
> 
> cheesy shit in russian >
> 
> I hope you all have a wonderful week ahead, and take care of yourselves ❤️


	6. Divide by 2, Add 7

“Fuck - me!”

Katya slammed her foot into the metal trashcan adorning the west hall’s bathroom walls, groaning as she huffed out a thick fog of smoke. Breath erratic and hair clinging to her face. Spinning, but only just so - enough to make her feel dizzy at every turn. Her head roared as her back hit the wall, sliding down to sit on the floor as she stared ar rhe half of her cig left, burning into the ether.

“You’re seducing me, aren’t you?”

Without thinking, the cigarette was flung from her hand and she ferociously rummaged through her pockets to light another, throwing the lighter as she took a drag and listening to the click-click-click of metal on tiled floors. Her hands shook a little bit as she dragged fingers down her sweaty cheek, eyes darting from side to side of the room.

The chain of events was just too much to handle.

How did Trixie clock her so calmly?

Why did she start giving her relationship advice?

And just when did a southern accent, one she gave Ginger absolute hell about for as long as they’d been friends, become so charming and petite when attached to that life-sized Barbie?

Fuck, she could feel her heart beating out of her chest, and it was beyond unfamiliar. The quiet murmurs of Russian pet names, dragging her hand down soft skin, pulsing the motions of her fingers in a way that was almost rhythmic, just as she had always done with any girl who had meandered by. It was supposed to be familiar.

But Trixie threw her neck back, and Trixie let out stuttered breaths that harmonized just so, and even if it was quick, every moment was filled with little melodies of Trixie in any form she could manage.

And she was only, what, twenty-three? Twenty two?

Katya furrowed her brow. The old rule - divide by two, add seven...she was basically thirty - that meant fifteen, plus seven: twenty two.

She smiled into her cig, her back curling. So it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t, not by the books.

Oh, God, but a college freshman? Katya groaned and pushed herself to her feet.

Trixie would go “Ka-ah-tea-ahh,” with little hitches of breath and tone. Like cursive flowing smoothly.

“Ugh.” She walked up to one of the sinks and washed her hands, leaning down and splashing the water on her face. The mirrors were old and dusty, but kept no secrets - Katya was tired, barely clinging to the thin sheet of fabric that surrounded her, and struggling to stay upright. Flashing her teeth, she noticed they were already yellowing just slightly.

She scowled, sighing as she stepped away from the mirror. Her bangs were too long. Everything was going wrong.

At least Trixie let her down gently.

Every word led to the thought of finding somebody else, which was fair. Nobody had to like a rough-skinned, chain-smoking, just-a-touch-too-upfront lesbian librarian. She fucked lots of girls and nothing came of it, but that might’ve been because she didn’t want anything to come of it. But now Katya had to live with calling Trixie her wife in front of strangers, sleeping in the same room as her, and eventually seeing her off back into the wreckage of whatever laid outside. It was a world she had selfishly created for herself. One that she wasn’t sure Trixie wanted.

At least there seemed to be a mutual understanding of what this was. Friends with benefits at most. Strangers who fucked a handful of times at least.

Did strangers who fucked a handful of times kiss like that?

Katya moaned and ran her fingers through her hair, bits of ash floating over her forehead. She kicked the trashcan once more, grumbling to herself. An old, old man. One who didn’t fall in love, who refused to fall in love, who refused to exist outside of her own peripherals. Katya’s slow-moving world with twists and turns, guided by her own hands and led on by the implications of the next day. And the next day, and the next day.

Just how many days had she been here?

Lifting her head, Katya looked up at the darkened and smooth ceiling of the bathroom. She had come here alone, begrudgingly and only at the threat of losing her job. With plans to leave in the back of her mind, Katya was held high as a public servant - regardless of her actual abilities to offer other than backlog of murder-mystery recommendations and a fascination with newspaper archives - and she knew the orders came from people far above her: if you cannot serve the public, you have no place here. But what the fuck did running background checks and making food runs and caging local pets and collecting contraband have to do with being a librarian? She missed her cat. She missed her home, she missed buying groceries and cigarettes, she missed the pipes that leaked and the air conditioning that didn’t work. It was her first home, small and cramped, filled with filthy antiques and wooden fixtures.

And it might be gone.

But her cat was in the midwest. She was here. Cigarettes aren’t only sold in her hometown. There will be more libraries. There will be more places. There will be more adventures.

Maybe Trixie’s university had a library. And maybe her town had little houses near campus.

She flared her nostrils and kicked the can again, crumpling to her knees. Tired. Stressed. Limited on nicotine. No chance to relapse without losing all that she for certain had left. This should be hell. This should be.

But it wasn’t.

All because of that high school feeling, drifting through Katya’s stream of thought and tugging her further, further, further down the line. Trixie pulling the rope, humming at the end of Katya’s bed, an image in black and gold.

Oh, God. Her cat was gonna kill her. Going off and meeting some blondie with a rack and a dry sense of humor. This shit wasn’t fair. Imagining her cat sitting at the base of the doorway, staring at Trixie behind Katya’s frame, confused and betrayed.

“ _Bozhe_ , _pomagi_ _mne_ -!” The muffled whisper accompanied by one last spinning blow to the garbage can, which clung to the wall with one remaining screw. She stood up straight and cracked her back, letting out a sharp breath as her joints came back to life.

Katya was getting old. Maybe she wasn’t made for disasters like this.

And suddenly, movement.

The thick smattering of feet on the tile floors, the slap of fingers lacing around the side wall. Huffing and panting at the end of the hallway, curling around her like smoke.

“I...I heard banging, what’s going on?”

“Trixie?”

The blonde in the doorway lifted her head, straightening her back to look at Katya. “Wh - you fucking raccoon, I thought there was some domestic violence shit going on back here! What were you doing?!”

“I...I...” Katya sputtered, her free hand twitching as she looked down at her cig. “My...bangs are, they’re getting too long.”

Trixie’s expression flatlined, an incredulous look crossing her face. “You’re in here being a destructive lesbian over your bangs?”

“What else would I be a destructive lesbian about?” Katya huffed, blowing her fringe out of her eyes.

“I don’t know, fucking _anything_?” Trixie sighed, moving to grab Katya’s hand and pulling her backward. She pulled out her phone and turned on the flashlight, angling it upward to closely exam her bangs.

“Don’t get too close to me this late,” the older woman murmured dryly, lacing her fingers around the blonde’s wrist. “It’s dangerous for the both of us, solnyshka muya.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “You’re awful at flirting when you’re delirious. And I have no idea why you’d raise hell over your bangs when the girl you just slept with is a hairstylist.”

“I said I was a stupid lesbian, not a stupid lesbian who retains useful information.”

“Very strong argument. Do you want me to cut your hair?”

Katya gaped, eyelids fluttering. “You can do that?”

“I’m shaving your head. Stupid shit.”

“Oh, please. Make me your dream dyke.”

“I’m _LEAVING_!”

She desperately wanted to kiss the blonde.

It was a wave of revelations, passing over quickly as she tilted her head. “I usually chop my bangs myself, though...you’ll make them look too good, people will be surprised.”

“Ah...God, tell me you at least didn’t use regular scissors...”

Trixie trailed off, staring at Katya’s blank expression.

“Eh...w-what other scissors would I have used?”

“KATYA?! Fuck, your next girlfriend needs to keep you in check. Or just keep your hair in check.”

“I already have one who does both of those things,” she said simply, smiling cheekily up at the blonde.

“Stupid. I mean...y’know. In the real world.” Trixie leaned in, holding a hand to Katya’s bangs and rubbing the hair between her fingers. “Mmm...it’ll take some-“

Katya jumped on the opportunity to kiss her again, fingers still locked around Trixie’s wrist.

And it was quick, quiet, and Trixie didn’t freeze against her.

“Dumbass. Don’t do that.”

It was warm.

Trixie ruffled the older woman’s hair, a smile tugging at her lips as she stepped away and shoved her hands in her shorts pockets. “I can go get my kit.”

“You brought it with you?”

“A really tiny version of it, yeah.” The blonde’s tone shifted a little. Uneasy. “I knew that the university would be closed for a while after the storm, so I was hoping to book some odd jobs in my hometown.”

“Then I’ll pay you back-!” Katya replied eagerly. “Because it’s a job then, right?”

“Do you have the money to pay me with?”

The older woman deflated, holding up a shaky finger. “Ehhh...w-well...”

“Don’t worry. You don’t need to.”

“Because I paid you earlier-“

“ _Yeah_. You. You don’t need to say it,” Trixie cut her off with a groan, rubbing her eyes. “I’ll be right back.”

And like that, she spun away. Whirling through the hall, Katya imagined. Determined. Endowed with a mission, instilled with the pursuit to satisfy.

It was cute when she got excited.

Katya stepped back up to the mirror, playing with her bangs again. Maybe this was some awful, twisted dream. The worst hurricane of her life, a curly haired bimbo floating around her like a silky fog, and the thought of acting like a high school girl again. Maybe the world was different. Maybe it was because they were physically in a high school. Maybe the hurricane was a portal into an alternate dimension where Katya accidentally starting catching feelings for the people she wanted to fuck.

She squinted at the glass, fluffing her bangs and pinching the end of her nose. Making a friends-with-benefits situation work wouldn’t be too hard.

But maybe she didn’t even have enough time to do that, maybe everything was a lot more finite than Katya ever considered, maybe nobody was watching out for her like she hoped.

Hanging her head, she let out a low sigh.

“Fhuuuuuuuuuuck.”

A quiet groan.

“What?”

Katya jumped back, turning to the doorway of the bathroom. Trixie stood with her backpack hung over one shoulder, a pair of scissors and a comb in each hand.

Trying her best to appear casual, Katya scooted back and hopped up onto the sink, her butt sinking into the well of the sink and her feet dangling just above the floor. Trixie choked, muffling laughter as she watched the older woman stare at her with big, starry eyes.

“What’s there to laugh about, Dolly?”

“Oh, nothing.” She got right to work, brushing Katya’s bangs out and in front of her face. An intimacy Katya had only known from her own reflection and wrinkled expression as she hacked away at her own bangs in the comfort of her bathroom. “I just thought about you hopping up there and then the whole thing detaching from the wall and sending you crashing down.”

“I’m a hundred pounds soaking wet. That could never happen.”

“A hundred pounds? I’m gonna skin you alive.”

“You can’t talk dirty to me now,” Katya purred, her fingers dancing up Trixie’s arms.

“I should fuck up your bangs just for that...” The blonde squinted, biting the inside of her lip as she brought the scissors to the tips of Katya’s bangs. Concentration to the greatest degree.

How cute.

“Do you like cutting hair?”

“Most people ask that when they’re in my chair, y’know. It’s a boring question,” Trixie hummed, tiny bits of hair floating down and tickling Katya’s nose.

“Then fuckin’ answer it!”

“It’s alright. Pays my bills, not too hard. I prefer wig styling, mostly because the stakes are lower and because those mannequin heads you style wigs on don’t talk, breathe, or try to avoid eye contact for the entire duration of the cut.” A firm hand guided Katya’s jaw as she began to laugh, her back prickling and her expression changing abruptly. “No moving,” the blonde murmured, her voice low. “Then I’ll really fuck shit up.”

“Whaddya say when customers ask?”

“Oh, I tell them I hate it. If I fuck up, I can always backpedal and say I warned them.”

“I wish I could do something like that at my job,” Katya lamented.

“Tell them you can’t read.”

Katya closed her eyes dramatically, trying to stifle her expected bursts of wheezing. The delivery was too dry. Too perfect.

“I’ll give it a shot sometime,” she finally said.

“Good,” Trixie responded plainly, leaning over to turn on the faucet in the sink beside them. “Let me know how it goes.” She ran wet fingers through Katya’s bangs, trimming quickly at the rougher edges with the scissors held vertically in the older woman’s vision.

“And how am I supposed to do that?” The words flowed fluidly and without thought.

And then Trixie paused for a brief moment, her face blank and eyes angled downward. Ah, the answer seemed obvious. Phone number, maybe. Keeping contact. Unexpected turning points in Katya’s head, realizing this wasn’t shit she had ever considered before. What do you do with women you like? Would one call her, visit from time to time? Are they friends id the exchange numbers?

Katya tilted her head a little, trying to catch Trixie’s gaze.

 _Is_ _it_ _bad_ _that_ _I_ _only_ _know_ _you_ _like_ _this_?

“Ah.” The hand again, jerking her jaw forward once more. “Remember. No moving.”

“Aren’t you basically done anyway?”

“Yeah, but I wanna make sure it looks good.”

“I’m sure it doesn’t. There’s no way you could make a dumpster whore like me look decent, no matter how talented you are.”

“I don’t need to do much work,” Trixie said mindlessly, clipping at a few stray ends that hung between her brows. “You have good bone structure, nice teeth, y’know. Not hard to make look alright. I’d love to paint you.”

Ah.

 _So_ mindless.

Katya tried to not beam at the blonde when she stepped back, nodding.

“Yeah, I think we’re good to go! All debts repaid, thank God for your bank account,” Trixie joked, shooting the older woman a stupid smile as she turned back to her bag and packed up her things. Katya watched quietly, noting the attempt at organization within her backpack.

“Y’know...I still think you got the better end of the deal.”

“Did I really?” Trixie responded dryly.

“Yup. I’m prepared to leave a shit Yelp review, mind you.”

“Oh, God, _aaaanything_ but that,” Trixie drawled, standing back up and brushing tiny bits of hair off of Katya’s cheeks. “How could I avoid such a horrible review?”

“Make out with me in this fuckin’ sink right now.”

Trixie felt so real. Her fingers wrapped around the curve of the sink, the sweat on her jaw when Katya brushed the side of her cheek to run her hands through her hair. She was the eye-closing, slow-nose-breathing, forehead-touching, and tremored-heartbeat-loving intimacy that tied so closely with disgusting implications and yet, Katya craved more than anything in the exact moment of darkness in the middle of the night in a high school bathroom during what could arguably be the worst week-or-so of her life.

Trixie broke away after a moment, dipping her head a little bit and smiling to herself.

“Maybe I’ll take the review,” the blonde murmured, her grip on the sink readjusting as she sighed. “I don’t want to end up jealous of whatever girl gets to do that next.”

The rose colored lenses cut in Trixie’s image had to be a reaction to everything going wrong. Katya remained silent, fluffing her bangs. It’s not like looking at her like this was wrong.

Maybe it’d be fun to indulge.

“I’m exhausted,” Trixie finally said, stepping back and cracking the awkward air between the two with an equally-awkward and nervously-poised segue. “Sh...should we go back?”

Katya pushed herself out of the sink and nodded, considering turning back to look at her new bangs in the mirror. Shifting her weight, Trixie avoided Katya’s gaze.

But the older woman smiled.

“ _Solnyshka_ _muya_ \- you’re just full of good ideas tonight, aren’t you?”

 

Katya awoke slowly. Like waking up in a hotel bed as a child, bewildered by the clean landscape and simple walls, panicking when she realizing that she wasn’t in her bedroom, and gradually settling as she remembered what brought her here.

Except the landscape was musty and humid, the walls lined with papers tacked into the shellac walls, and a dark tint of grey was slapped over everything within her line of sight.

She leaned forward, groaning as she cracked her back. Simple, moving, domestic almost, and routine. Nudging Trixie’s shoulder and watching her roll onto her stomach, pushing her face into the pile of blankets she used as a makeshift pillow. Casual. Expected and calm, like she’d make the blonde coffee and head out to the library.

Did Trixie like coffee?

“Trix.”

She groaned in response.

“Wanna come with me to start breakfast duties?”

Slow-blinking eyes. Lifting her head and sighing, Trixie tilted her chin up at the older woman. “I mean. Not really.”

“Do you want Ginger to come kick you out instead?”

“ _Fiiiii_ - _iiiiiine_ ,” she yawned, leaned forward and wrapping her arms around her knees. The valleygirl twang, a red carpet that rolled from her lips and bounced onto the tiled floors. Katya stood abruptly, brushing off her thighs and pulling on a pair of slip-ons before holding her hands out to the blonde. Tugging her upward, the warmth of softer hands. This storm could last forever.

“I might go upstairs for a smoke beforehand. Want me to come get you afterward?”

“You already woke me up.”

“I never let women wake up alone.”

An eyeroll in response. “Your next girlfriend’s gonna hate that you flirt like a man,” Trixie muttered as she stepped out into the hall, watching Katya turn back to lock the door before arching her head to the lowlit ceiling. “Don’t we date women to avoid that?”

“Well, thank God I’ll never have to make an attempt at dating other women then,” Katya remarked quickly.

“That was smoother. You’re getting better.”

“Anything to impress you, kotenok.” A quiet huff, blowing upward at her own bangs as she shoved her hands in her pockets. The rest of the walk was quiet, but it was different - Trixie kept pace in comfortable silence, her head tilting to and fro as she examined the landscape. There wasn’t a leader or a follower. It was continuous, casual, and so subtly remarkable to Katya.

Didn’t Trixie not like her smoking?

Her nose crinkled at the smell, her cracked nails waving in front of her face when Katya smoked in the small space of their room. Maybe the taste had grown on her. Maybe the taste would fade on Katya over time, a permanent fixture - especially given the circumstances. God, she had blasted through so many cigs after leaving Trixie to her own devices, the bathroom floor littered with burnt white ends. The stress of thinking like such a child. Ginger had allowed her to leave work early before the storm hit to stock up without letting their manager know. The stocky southern woman was good for something.

“Katya?”

“Mmm?”

“Do you think my car’s still out there?”

Katya stopped at the foot of the stairwell, thinking for a moment.

“Do you think any answer would help you right now?” she finally asked.

“No, not really,” Trixie sighed, her tone dropping as she trudged ahead of Katya up the steps. The older woman jumped up a stair, grabbing loosely onto Trixie’s wrist.

“But I don’t know much of anything. It sure could be.”

“I don’t know much of anything either.”

“Then collectively we might know something about anything,” Katya reasoned, jumping up to Trixie’s level.

“And what good does that do us?” Trixie asked quietly, raising a brow.

“Probably nothing,” she wheezed. And yet the blonde still smiled.

“You really need a smoke break, huh?”

“Oh, desperately.”

Katya darted up the stairs, leaving Trixie silent behind her. It was childish, it felt awkward, it stressed her out - yet she loved that dance, toying with Trixie’s expression and her words, playing with their dynamic so freely and without consequence. Floating, truly. Like nothing mattered.

The lockers were tucked away in the middle of the hall, adorning the walls of a right-corner that entered what seemed to be an arts wing. Clicking her tongue as she tapped the metal doors - one, two, three, four - until finally opening hers, turning her body to face the stairs as she fingered around her locker.

Empty.

How odd.

“No.”

Empty-empty. The real kind of empty, where every noise echoed a touch louder than it should have.

Nothing, truly nothing. She turned back to look into the locker. They hadn’t even left her the boxes. Her hands groped at the empty locker, knees faultering as she realized what had happened, breath hitching when the implications hit her, and everything flatlining when she heard Trixie’s footsteps down the hall.

“Katya?”

Cigs. Cigs, smokes, relaxation. Stocking up. Money spent. Cigs. Nothing.

“Are you alright?”

Three in her pocket, two in their room, a butt she might be able to light again dropped into her bag. Cigs. Ginger - no, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t ask to share. Ginger probably didn’t have many or any, as her coworkers rarely smoked anymore - and she couldn’t put this feeling on anyone else. Why didn’t she keep them on her? Why did she trust lockless lockers to hold her together? Why? What thrill did she get from each passing moment, knowing she had to find them somewhere? Retreating slowly, running her fingers through her hair and letting out a shuddered breath. Buying cigarettes. Broken glass windows, bloodied fingers, stealing cigs.

It wasn’t like she _wanted_ to stay, anyway.

“...Katya? Everything okay?” An urgency to her voice.

Hanging her head back upside-down and looking at the image of the blonde, stretching her neck as her gaze drifted to the pouring rain and winds in the window behind Trixie. Backlit, the forgotten angel. The storm pounding outside. She thought about the rain, the rivers, the flooding, and the loud click of those needlessly heavy doors locking behind her.

“Ah. Ah, I’m. I’m good, yeah, just...thought a little bit too much. Y’know. Haven’t had to use this chickenshit brain for a while now.”

Trixie hummed, smiling a little. “Then have your smoke break. Turn off the chickenshit brain, we don’t want you shutting down when we need you.”

Ah, but wait.

Trixie had stray hairs floating beyond her loose curls, and her expression seemed distant. Her skin was speckled with pores and sweat, the hairs on her legs standing straight and the scuffs of dirt on her knees darker than usual. And she was farther away, sinking against the fading background, her scenery painted messily with gold. Trixie looked tired. Trixie looked ready for good things to happen to her, she had a warmth that was fragile and tangible, slipping between Katya’s fingers. Waiting for things to go right in her world, the world where she probably saw Katya as a temporary ally, the world that spun so closely beside Katya’s but at a much slower pace.

Trixie was just a girl. A real, honest to God girl.

Katya leaned back forward, her back turned to Trixie as she shakily pulled a lighter and a cig from her pocket. She stared into the empty locker, sighing and watching it fill with smoke before closing the door. Sinking, sinking further.

“ _Etah_... _etah_ _mir_ _umirayet_.”

And then she turned back, smiling. The blonde raised a brow, a wide-eyed and confused expression on her face.

“What’s that mean?”

Katya took a quick puff and grinned ear-to-ear, looping her free arm with Trixie’s and pulling her towards the stairs.

“The people are hungry! No time to waste.”

At least she would know Trixie was safe with Ginger. A girl didn’t deserve to be dragged into these problems.And none of this was real, anyway. No matter how warm Trixie’s fingers were intertwined with her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> etah mir umirayet: this world is dying. 
> 
> That one felt important so she’s going first.  
> Hello again! It hasn’t been a million years since my last upload, yay ❤️ Hopefully there will be at least one every two weeks from now on, maybe once a week if I have more free time.  
> I love you all, treat yourselves well this week, and don’t be afraid to leave feedback ❤️ Be back soon ! 
> 
> solnyshka muya: my sun  
> bozhe, pogami mne: god help me


	7. Glass Walls

Katya’s routine was easy to live alongside. Dancing between shelving new inventory from sporadic FEMA deliveries, entertaining small groups of kids in the main hall, chatting endlessly with Ginger about local updates, and then, finally it came: the slight reprieve, the ease of breath while running and re-running and re-re-running background checks. Katya was suddenly so thorough, always moving. Perhaps getting a bit sick, as she’d picked up the habit of bursting into fits of coughing. But maybe this is just how she was. There was no reason to assume otherwise.

Trixie lounged on the makeshift front desk, her back flush against the hard plastic tables and her legs dangling over the side. A small motorized fan whirred in her direction, blowing at her frizzy mass of hair and keeping her upper body from drowning in sweat - truly, finally allowing the shelter to access the generator was the highlight of her week. Fan or not, though, Trixie found herself in that same position often as Katya thumbed through files, acting like a right business women - and maybe that’s because she was. Almost thirty. Maybe she was actually thirty, maybe she was older? Trixie looked away from the phone she held in her hands, eyes wandering to the older woman’s expression and furrowed brow. What if she wasn’t even Katya?

What if her name was like, Mildred, or something?

“Trixie. Snap the fuck out of it, Barbie.” Katya didn’t even look up from her files. It was like she just knew.

“Woah, _shit_.” The blonde’s eyes widened and she looked back at the phone. “So...you just want me to, like, read off local news?”

“Yeah. Ginger’s asleep. I need to know.”

“I mean, what is there to report on? ‘Breaking news: still raining!’? What’re you expecting?”

“The storm’s letting up,” Katya responded, sucking on her teeth as she pulled out a manila folder and flipped through the nondescript papers. “FEMA’s out, which means it’s damage control time. And it also means anybody who didn’t come to a shelter will be out, so...well, it means we’ll probably have a bit of a clusterfuck for a while.”

“Why?” Trixie’s voice was softer, attention fully on Katya as she waited for her phone’s browser to find a connection.

“People will want to leave. And they won’t care that they’re stuck once they leave, because they’re so tired of being in here.” The older woman sighed, her fingers pausing for a moment. “...And then they’ll start running into the big problems. No fresh water. No food deliveries for at least a week. No electricity.”

“Why don’t we just...let ‘em go?” Trixie asked, rolling onto her stomach and smiling. “Let’s not tell anyone and eat their breakfasts, yeah?”

“ _Bozhe_. _Byt_ ’ _krasivay_.  _Podarok_... _proklyatiye_?”

“D...does that mean ‘Great plan, Trixie, let’s do it!’ or ‘Wow, you’re the dumbest broad I’ve ever met!’?”

“We’re locking the doors when the main hall is eating dinner. Every night, so nobody can sneak out.” The older woman coughed and tossed the folder back into the pile, fiddling with the printer for a moment before turning back to Trixie. She looked...tired. And she stepped forward and reached out, resting a knuckle on Trixie’s cheek. “But...your plan does sound pretty fuckin’ great.”

Ah.

Oh no.

Trixie felt strangely squeamish, her ears darkening when Katya turned her back again in favor of her paperwork.

Katya.

Maybe she was just tired. Maybe she just wanted to lead Trixie on a bit more. Maybe Katya was so completely and absolutely involved in their fake relationship, the foundation of Trixie’s understanding of the entire past week or so, that she had suspended her disbelief for a second - and maybe for that split second, with Katya’s knuckle dragging lightly across her face, the two of them really were as it seemed.

Trixie closed her eyes.

What the _fuck_ did she have to say to tear Katya away from those papers?

“The...the, uh. The local Dollar Tree’s been robbed,” Trixie began, clearing her throat as she scrolled through the website that finally loaded. “Pieces of the highway have been levelled...fuck, it kind of looks like a river in the pictures...”

“Any news on local roads?”

“No, just highways. But in pictures...I-I mean, if these roads are familiar to you, they’re fine...” Trixie held out her phone, and Katya immediately spun around to inspect the pictures closely.

Her expression warmed. “Ah. I take that route to work every morning.”

“Besides all the sticks and shit, it looks good. There are a few trees down, I think, but no locations are really listed? Uhm...a bridge is unusable, surprise-surprise. One fatality.”

“What happened?”

“Highway drowning.”

Katya hummed in response.

“...I was really stupid, wasn’t I?” Trixie asked quietly.

“I wouldn’t say it was smart, definitely not.”

“But I’m here now.”

“But you’re here now.”

Trixie turned off her phone and slid it down the table, staring up at the ceiling. The dim, blinking light of the whirring generator shone a red halo onto the tiled ceiling. It all seemed medical. The blur of time passing, the sounds of papers being turned over and tossed, and the red, blinking light. Looming goodbyes. Bottled up childhood memories.

“...Wouldn’t you rather the path of your morning commute be destroyed?” Trixie piped up.

“Why would I want that?”

“Because. Y’know. Who the fuck wants to go to work?”

Katya raised a brow. “Other roads exist.”

“Well....I mean.” The blonde huffed and propped up her head up with her palm. “Sure. But what if those were blocked off too?”

“I’d probably miss it.”

Trixie gawked at her. “Really?! Why?”

“I just. It’s...hard to explain.” Katya sighed, sitting in the chair beside the tables and letting the papers fall in her lap. “Don’t you miss buying groceries? Don’t you miss driving places? Don’t you miss getting to choose to sleep in and do nothing all day? Don’t you miss complaining about the regulars at work, and aren’t you starting to miss all the things you hated about them?”

“I miss not being here.”

“Maybe you’re just too young,” Katya remarked dryly. “Too accustomed to adventure. Everything being new and exciting.” She sighed shakily, her brittle nails clicking on the metal sides of the chair. “This is too much excitement for my rickety old bones.”

“Well maybe yoooou’re just too old,” Trixie quipped, leaning into her accent and lifting her chin at Katya. “Maybe you need a little more adventure! Off-road a little bit!”

“Dunno if I wanna take advice about off-roading from the dumb country bitch who drove straight into a fucking hurricane.”

“Well, I’m still here!” the blonde fumed, sitting up and balling her fingers into a fist. “And I’m doin’ great! Obviously!”

“You want me to go on more adventures like you, then?” Katya asked, her gaze darting back to her papers and then back up at Trixie. She seemed worried.

Maybe she just needed to think about something other than work.

“We need to get started on your bucket list soon anyway,” Trixie said, leaning forward and balancing her head between her hands. “You have one, right?”

“Really just one thing.”

The blonde’s eyes brightened. “And that is?”

“Die by twenty-seven.”

The two stared at each other for a few moments, smiling cracking across their faces. Trixie broke first, hanging her head and letting out a harsh burst of laughter - with Katya’s wheezing following suit.

“You’re,” Trixie sputtered, “you’re, what, thirty years off of that goal?”

“Stupid fuckin’ cunt.” The shorter woman leaned into her hands, shaking her head.

“Come up with a real one,” the blonde interrupted, her expression serious. “And if you come up with a real bucket list, I’ll try to appreciate more routine things.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

“I will! I’ll...y’know...read...the paper?” She sat for a moment. “What do...old people do...”

“Well, how am I to keep tabs on you?” Katya murmured. Her posture was lazy - her chin low, looking up at the blonde as if she refused to hold her head in any other way. Dark circles that she was never without.

And without even allowing herself to do so, Trixie indulged in wondering what Katya looked like without them. When sleep was expected and the world wasn’t on the verge of collapsing.

Snapping back to reality, Trixie tilted her head. “Whatcha mean?”

“How am I supposed to make sure you’ll keep your promise?”

The generator behind them hummed quietly, clicking to an off-beat time. Barely breathing, the blonde blinked and finally came to the words: “Ph...phone number?”

Katya didn’t move for a moment, her gaze burning into Trixie’s face. It was embarrassing, awkward almost. Extended contact. Disaster friends, pushed together by the worst of circumstances. Maybe Trixie could finally tell Kim about a girl that she liked now, and have a contact to prove it.

“You’re so fuckin’ weird, Trix.” The older woman leaned forward and snatched the phone from the far side of the table, nodding as she pulled up her messages. “Such a blonde.”

“You’re - _you’re_ blonde, you raccoon!”

“Yeah, but I’ve been basically begging for you to ask for my number, and it’s fully been...far too long.”

“Why couldn’t you ask for my number?” Trixie huffed, glaring at her. “Isn’t that a dumb blonde thing to do in the first place?”

“I don’t want you getting the wrong idea, doll.”

“Then why do I need your number if I’m not supposed to have any ideas?!”

Her words echoed through the empty hall, and the resounding whine in her tone was the only thing that made Trixie realize she had raised her voice. The older woman smiled, somehow dedicated to maintaining a calm aura despite her leg bouncing incessently. Never without a nervous tick.

“ _Solnyshka_ _muya_ ,” Katya began, holding the top edge of the phone to her chin and smiling. “How are you supposed to let me know when you get those nails off if you don’t have my number?”

Her delivery, seemingly perfect, accented by an outburst of coughing so aggressively juxtaposed her former tone. Her whole body seemed to collapse in on itself, a hand held to her chest as she pulled herself together and a weak expression on her face.

It was ticks like that. Ticks that planted ideas in her head, ticks that multiplied and migrated. Breaks in the character of Katya that Trixie wasn’t quite familiar with. Two people, poking and prodding at Trixie.

“Kidding.”

Maybe this is who she was.

“I saved my number. You can delete if you want, no questions asked.”

But for some reason, Trixie got the feeling it wasn’t.

“Though, it would be a shame, wouldn’t it?”

A softer tone. Her nails, the continuous clicking of her short, brittle fingernails on the metal legs of the chair. The shaking foot. The inability to keep still. The pulsing and ever-present veins in her wrist, backlit and bulging from her skin. Shadows. A murmuring vibration.

“Even though deleting it would probably do you some good, I guess.”

“I won’t delete it.” Trixie reached forward and grabbed the phone from her hands, pulling up her messages and scrolling to the new contact. It held new clarity now. The very real runaway train that she was steering. 

Katya didn’t say anything, a small smile stretching across her face. And yet her fingers kept clicking, her eyes distant as the two sat in silence for just a passing moment.

The generator kept humming. Time trudged on. People milled by the small dip in the main hall where they were, not even offering a passing glance. It was calm, mannerly, almost civil. Trixie dozed off, Katya woke her up to help the rest of the staff prepare for dinner. Single flowing movements, lazy Sundays, the comfort of napping and waking up slowly, in a hazy manner, not abrupt or stark. Dissolving, almost - bubbling at the surface and flowing into a smooth pool of sorted emotions. Again, Katya’s schedule was not a hard one to align herself with.

It was Katya herself that was the challenge.

The jumping of nerves, the sporadic switches from calm to crazed, the slips of personality between that of an elderly monarch and a siren.

_Krasavitsa_.

_Kotenok_.

_Solnyshka_ _muya_ , _muya_ _devushka_.

Sweet things, quietly slipped into conversation. She braided Trixie’s hair again after dinner, entwining strands of her frizzy hair with nervous fingers. Talking about being young. Maybe it was an old people thing.

And now she sat upright on the mattress that night, the butt of a cigarette held between her fingers. She had pulled in from the depths of her purse from what Trixie could tell and stared at it intently, as if it were the last remnant of home that she had. But now the older woman was floating even farther away, gaze straight at the door, watching ever-intently. Like she was expecting for someone to come, maybe - or perhaps worried about something unexpected. Her free hand grazed Trixie’s shoulder at all times, a cold but welcome reminder that she wasn’t alone in the humid darkness as she dozed off once more. It was her way of showing she cared, maybe.

So many maybes with Katya, it seemed.

Just maybe.

 

The clamor was loud enough to rouse Trixie from her sleep. She leaned forward, drowsiness melting over her vision as she pawed at the mattress. Katya had jumped to her feet, quickly sifting through her bag and ripping out a few objects. Rushed, heavy breathing, the sound of people outside, angered Russian hisses. The door was already open, the red flow of the generator light seeping into their room, and the older woman turned on her heelsas she shoved the items into her pants pockets. And then she disappeared, the hard thud of feet on the thick tiled floors sending ripples down Trixie’s spine.

Katya was running. Jogging, at least  

Trixie blinked, rubbing at her eyes.

Katya.

How strange.

She stood up quickly, grabbing a blanket and wrapping it around herself as she ducked her head out into the hall. Katya’s figure flew around the corner of their hall and up the stairs, Ginger’s name light on her lips. The blonde stared for a moment before dragging her hand across the table as she stepped back in the room, grabbing for a flashlight before she started down the hallway.

Fucking come back.

That’s not _fair_.

Trixie rounded the corner, huffing as she struggled to turn on the flashlight. It had to be almost morning. It wasn’t a food delivery. Nothing was supposed to be happening. They were supposed to be asleep. They were supposed to be asleep. The soupy humidity of night hung heavy on the blonde’s shoulders, confusion rushing over her body as adrenaline forced her eyes to open fully.

Where did Katya have to run to?

The light was dim yet somehow blinding, hollow in the center and brightening to create a halo in whatever direction Trixie pointed it. Everything was sound - Katya running back down the stairs, heavy panting, hushed directions. She heard the clatter of something hitting the ground, bouncing in time with muffled swears. So she swung the light in the noise’s direction, blinking slowly at the scene.

“Fuck’s sake, Trix! Turn that shit off!” Katya stood with her hand covering her face, large planks of wood balanced over one shoulder and held secure with her free hand. Ginger stood beside her, back turned. The room was cold.

“You dragged yer wifey into this? Really?”

“I didn’t drag shit into this, you rotted skunk - I just. I probably woke her up.”

“...That still makes you an ass.”

“Yes, yes, I know! God! Fuck off!”

“Woah, Lord. You’re acting crazy.”

Trixie stood in silence, flicking off the light and staring at their figures.

“Sorry, I haven’t slept.”

“What’re you...” The blonde stepped forward and shivered, pulling the blanket tighter around her body.

“Woah, no-no-no-no-no-no.” Katya lay the planks on the ground beside her and carefully stepped in Trixie’s direction, holding a hand out and grabbing her upper arm. “No stepping forward. You don’t have shoes on.”

“Wh...why?”

“There’s glass.”

Trixie stared at the smaller woman, blinking again. And again. “Okay. Again. Why?”

“Somebody broke out,” Ginger piped up. “They... _fuck_ , I can’t even tell you. I think they...took down the boards and threw their bag at the window. Broke it. Ran. We just thought locking doors was enough, but...”

“...Told you, _kotenok_ ,” Katya murmured under her breath.

“Stop calling me that.”

“I’d really love to stick around and watch y’all flirt with each other, but I think the main hall needs as much policing as possible. And the officers aren’t doing shit, we don’t have anybody guarding upstairs, everything is _fucking_ too much - I’m needed elsewhere.” Ginger buried her fingers in her hair, inhaling deeply. “Can I trust you lesbians with hammers?”

“Lesbians live in Home Depots,” Katya muttered. “We’ll manage.”

Trixie stared at Katya intently, raising a brow. _When_ _the_ _fuck_ _did this become a we situation?_

“...I wouldn’t let Dolly try to labor at something like this even if she wanted to,” Katya sighed, bowing her head. “Wouldn’t want her fucking up her nails. I can handle this.”

Ginger closed her eyes. “If I’m not knocking your door down for a nap at six on the dot, assume I’ve died of a stroke. And know I’m in a better place. Okay?”

“‘Kay, Gingy.”

Katya watched Ginger walk away, sighing as she turned the corner. Like Ginger walked away with any will she had to hold herself upright. And then she turned to look in the direction of the cooler air. It was an open patch of darkness in the side hall with glass walls that were blocked by boards covered in spray paint and tape. Trixie’s breath was caught in her throat. But it often was these days. 

“It’s like a new door, almost,” the older woman sighed, a hand resting on the jagged remnants of thick glass. Her fingers lay still. It was difficult to see, but she seemed to be wearing gloves.

“The breeze is nice.”

“Should we keep it open?” Katya hummed, smiling at the blonde over her shoulder.

“I don’t think it’s our place to decide what renovations are necessary.”

“But we could always just close off this wing. We’ve left all the doors open for free movement and bathroom access, but there’s only one back here. At least, I think.”

Nodding, the blonde stepped around the mess to stand opposite of Katya, leaning against the wooden boards that protected the rest of the wall. “...That’s less work. Why didn’t Ginger-“

“She’s stressed out. It’s, well, y’know, on our shoulders. If somebody gets hurt, if riots break out, if..if somebody leaves, we just...we won’t lose our jobs or anything, but she takes shit on like that. Kinda matronly. Stupid bitch.” And she smiled as she said it. “We’ll find out who it was in the morning.”

“...When you said people would wanna leave, I didn’t imagine some grand escape like this,” Trixie breathed.

“Nothin’ grand about it, _krasavitsa_.” Her gaze never left the window.

And it was too quiet. Far too quiet, given the open range that stood before them. That should’ve been filled with buzzes and chirps, rummaging animals and slight rainfall, breezesand whirring night noises to scare those bold enough to step outside. The world was standing on its toes, waiting. Hovering over a leading tone, refusing to resolve. Tormenting the crowd with a lack of resolution in absolute silence.

“...Sorry.” The blonde’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Why?”

“I feel like I said something wrong.”

“I say wrong things all the time,” the older woman replied plainly with a shrug, her face still turned away from Trixie.

“Yeah, you do.”

There were no stars, no semblance of a moon. No shadows or outlines, no rain, no murmurs of night.

“...What do you think of the person who ran out of here?” Katya piped up after a moment.

“I think they’re an idiot. Why?”

“Because I can’t quite figure out how I feel.”

Trixie shifted her weight, tugging the blanket up to her neck. “Explain.”

“I. Well...I feel. It just doesn’t...I don’t know.”

“No, say it.”

Katya inhaled slowly. “I feel...I feel like these walls are getting closer every day, I guess.”

And she coughed, scratching her neck as she finally gave in to meeting Trixie’s gaze.

She knew very little about Katya.

But she knew this wasn’t Katya.

Childlike and in need of care. Delicate and reclusive, almost bordering on nervous at times. Untrusting. Somebody who needed anything but what was happening right now.

Thus, Trixie’s next actions were sequential, unusually planned. They threw large glass shards out into the lawn, out of the hall’s path. They locked the hall’s thick, grey doors. They walked back to their room. They settled in. Trixie guided the shorter woman, an arm laced around her shoulder, the sort of dependence expected when guiding the wounded. And that dependence continued, the two with their backs pressed to the wall behind their mattress, Trixie leaning into Katya’s shoulder with the older woman’s hand resting on the side of her arm. Her gaze, half-lidded locked on the door. Breath low, waiting. Trixie didn’t know who or what Katya was waiting for. She wasn’t awake enough to ask, and she was too sure that Katya wouldn’t have an answer. The touch was inviting, though, no matter how little it calmed her worries - so she clung to it and let herself dull in her arms.

 

She woke up to muffled coughing.

How domestic.

“Sorry, _bozhe_ _muy_ , fuck,” Katya heaved. “It definitely would’ve woken you up if I had moved.”

The blonde lifted her head a bit and yawned, vision blurring. A comfortable warmth, not quite as demanding as the regular humidity.

“Ginger came to kick us out twenty minutes ago, but she felt bad about me being a cunt and accidentally waking you up last night.” A soft squeeze on her shoulder. “So she said we could stay until the breakfast delivery came in today.”

Nothing was urgent. That was nice.

Trixie closed her eyes again, exhaling slowly. “Are they late again?”

“Yeah. It’s alright, though. No rush, right? No hoards of hungry people anywhere to be seen in a shelter.”

Stretching, she felt her joints pop as she curled back against Katya’s side. “We should get over there for when they finally get here.” The room, her usual terrain, felt blurry to the touch, and she blinked a few times before realizing she was nose-to-nose with the older woman.

And Trixie couldn’t help but stare.

Lines under the eyes, deep and prominent, slightly purple in hue and widely dramatized by the shitty lighting. A prominent nose, textured skin, weary expression. Her brows seemed lower than usual, like her whole face was falling as time went on. Veins popping from her temples. Fear. Nerves. Worry. Something distant.

“Do I look that bad?” Katya mumbled, her gaze darting between Trixie’s and her own free hand.

“You didn’t sleep, did you?”

“No, my head. Wandering, y’know. And a headache.” Excuses.

“I have ibuprofen somewhere in my bag.”

“It wouldn’t work.”

Excuses, excuses.

Trixie stood abruptly, shaky in the knees before steadying and holding a hand to Katya.

“Something good is gonna happen today, even if that’s just you getting some sleep.”

Her eyes slowly raised to meet Trixie’s, her hand lazily falling into place against the blonde’s.

“Whatever you say, Trix.”

Depleted. Lost. Different. Unnerving. Trixie was going to find what would recharge Katya. And she was gonna find it today.

The two adventured into the hallway, Trixie’s pace quickening as she milled through the small clusters of people, fingers locked with Katya’s. It would’ve been different not four days ago.

“I’m going to be honest.”

“Oh, _bozhe_ _muy_ , spare me.”

“You’re acting weird and it’s freaking me out because I can’t tell if you’re acting weird or if this is just who you are, and I really feel like it’s not but...I don’t know anything, fuck.”

By this point, they had turned the corner to the blocked off area from the night before, which Trixie hastily unlocked as she rambled on.

“Is this just what disasters do? Am I supposed to know what to do in this situation? How am I supposed to make things better?”

“Trix, you don’t have t-“

“I don’t know what it’s like to maybe not have a house. I don’t even know what it’s like to be separated from a pet because those are too much work. All I do is hair and makeup, on and on and on until either my fingers fall off or I go blind, and I-“

“ _Solnyshka muya_ , there’s no reason to be so upset,” the older woman huffed, pulling Trixie to a stopping point and lifting a hand to the blonde’s cheek. She was mad, a firey mad. But she was more than that.

“You can’t just say there isn’t a reason. That’s not fair.”

Katya’s thumb dragged underneath her eye, resting her palm on her cheekbone. “Mm.”

“So what do I do?” Pleading, almost  

“Dunno.” She leaned forward and up, kissing the blonde - chaste, like lovers from childhood.

And she didn’t taste like smoke.

“I don’t think I’m going to do this right,” Katya muttered, her grasp on Trixie’s hand slipping.

“I drove into a hurricane,” Trixie mumbled. “Can’t get much worse.”

Silence hung heavy over the two of them, and they stayed like that for a while before beginning the walk down the hall. They passed the mess from the night prior, with the pink of dawn seeping over them for a moment. Usually Katya was the one talking on the walk over, evaluating at length the practices of having to drop off food almost every day rather than doing bi-weekly pickups. But it was quiet, and neither of them minded, despite it not being the comfortable quiet they had become so accustomed to.

The world was different when they stepped outside, much different from night.

Mosquitos humming in time with the cicada-ridden trees, a new life that Trixie had never known from this place. The scattered limbs of trees, green leaves flung across the stretch of sidewalk, all swung by the lost shore breeze. For the first time, with her feet in wet grass and dirt speckling her ankles, the world was so vocally true that it was hard to ignore. It was a reckoning.

And when the sun rose, even God held His breath.

But Katya looked on with empty eyes in the doorway, the hollow humidity clouding the air between them. There were no words worth speaking, and there existed no possible way of explaining.

“...It’s really nice, yeah?” The words were hoarse and rehearsed.

Trixie turned on her heel to face the older woman, her face bright as she nodded. Katya. Katya, the only person she knew here was at an angle, neck craned to the sky, a lost aspect to their expression - and yet, she didn’t care. Like light was the filter she needed, blowing over the dust of Katya’s appearance and bringing joy to her sleepless eyes. The sun was here. The world was on its way again. Trixie was on her way again. And that meant Katya had to be, too.

“It won’t last.” Katya offered a weak smile, letting the door click behind her. “It’s gonna rain again. And you’ll forget the sun was ever watching over us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone !!! uni is killing me !! wow what a surprising turn of events.   
> But no really, I missed you all and writing. Spring break is coming up, so I’ll have more time soon!! An angsty chapter or two left to go, then it’s time for sawft lesbian extravaganza. Love you all, thanks for tunin’ in, and feel free to leave feedback! ❤️ I love hearing from you guys, it makes me stupid happy.   
> Have a good weekend !!
> 
> kotenok, solnyshka muya, krasavitsa - russian pet names   
> bozhe muy - my god   
> byt krasivay, podarok....proklyatiye? - to be beautiful, a gift...a curse? (basically she said girl...for real)


	8. Leaving

There were lots of things that Katya shouldn’t do.

She sat quiet in the dark of night, her arm lazily draped across the blonde’s shoulder. A beast, truly - with legs that went past Katya’s hip, extending out and bent against the walls. A delicate beast. Eyelids that fluttered and slightly-parted lips, limp against her frame, soft and dependent. Her thumb rubbed slow circles against the bare skin, a thoughtless move. Thoughtless, but not careless.

This was the third night without sleep.

The first was spent in denial, with her eyes shut tight and foam plugs shoved as deep as she could manage in her ears. The second was spent with her head in her hands, trying to calm the throbbing sensation in her neck by concentrating on the steady up and down, up and down of Trixie’s stomach as she breathed. Now, in the depths of her third night, after the chaos of watching a man break through walls to get out of this place, she wondered if she’d be able to sleep even with a cig in her hand. She knew now it was in part the lack of nicotine, but moreso the fact that Katya didn’t feel safe enough to close her eyes for too long.

It hadn’t happened so quickly before. The stress of losing cigs meant she burnt through her remaining ones in a day and a half. The headaches, the pain in her chest, that sinking feeling just behind her eyes. Her neck hurt terribly. Only time could tell if things would return to how they once were.

She let her mind wander, and of course it went where it shouldn’t. Blondie. Dolly. Kotenok. Trixie seemed to be a ditzy girl. A daisy girl, a lacey girl. One who would turn and smile to a man twice Katya’s size, one who would be in pieces on her wedding day. Sometimes that nagging side of her came out, the side that pulled every word from Katya’s mouth and drew her in closer, closer, as if she knew what was coming - and then dropped her entirely, letting go so easily. They were pit stops on each other’s highways, with a much longer road ahead.

Katya inhaled, holding her breath as she covered her eyes with her free hand.

This had really been fun.

She’d really enjoyed Trixie.

She’d enjoyed the romp through sustained normalcy, she enjoyed lying to Trixie about wishing things were the way they used to be, she enjoyed dropping sweet hints filled with nothing to coax Trixie further down the path to wherever they were now.

Trixie had her number now. And for some god forsaken reason, that made every fiber of her being flutter a bit, regardless of the fact that Trixie would have to contact her first.

Maybe it’d be good to say it out loud.

What if they had met under different circumstances?

Trixie wandering into her library, vying for a paper or maybe just directions. Katya would shove Ginger to the side, she imagined - that girl was exactly her type, no reason to beat around the bush - to help her, dazzling her with all of the charm and handsome nature Katya could conjure up on a moment’s notice. Maybe ask her on a date like she did other girls, and probably get turned down. Fanning that little spark, spreading across the brush of Katya’s landscape. There would be a reason to chase her. Even if she hated the smell of the smokes, if she hated the color of the walls in Katya’s bedroom, if she hated the tone of Katya’s crackling laughter - there would be a way to make it work with Dream Girl. She just knew it, deep in her heart.

Those kinds of fantasies hurt a bit. The ones where the world was normal and Katya could remembee the sound of peace. When she was the one who made waves.

At one point, Ginger showed up, throwing the door open something fierce. Katya’s free arm instinctively flew over to cover the sleeping blonde, her brow furrowed as she looked to see Ginger’s frame.

“...You’re in deep, you old bat,” spoken with a thick, matronly drawl as Ginger’s gaze raked over the scene.

Katya said nothing in return.

“Did you even sleep?”

“I want to go home, Ginger.”

“I do, too.”

“I need to go home. I need to see if it’s still there.”

“...You’re not thinking about leaving, are you?” she huffed incredulously.

Katya bowed her head in response.

“Is it because you’re out of cigs?”

“How did you...No,” Katya muttered, her voice raspy.

“You think I’m so fuckin’ stupid I can’t pick up on withdrawal symptoms?”

“It’s...it’s more than that, though.” She was thankful for Trixie’s warmth. It was the only thing keeping her steady. “I’ll come back.”

“No.”

“I will!” Another lie. “I’ll, I’ll be back! I just need to see if my home is okay. I don’t have a husband who stayed behind who can send me house updates. Fuck, man.”

Ginger paused, a rising anger growing more present in her expression. “You fuckin’...Jesus. I’m not equipped to handle you. Neither is she.” A finger pointed in Trixie’s direction. “God help me you do any stupid shit and don’t just leave quietly. You owe me a million goddamn favors for taking over the morning shift.”

“I...didn’t expect to win that fight.”

“Stopping you is out of my wheelhouse. And I know you’ll be fine. You’ve done worse before - be more worried about what blondie has to say.”

“She won’t care.”

“Oh?” Ginger tilted her head and let a hand brush over the desk.

“Yeah. She’s just a kid. She wouldn’t get it.”

The stout woman sighed, smiling a bit. “Alright. Well. As bitchy as I am, I feel awful she was up so late last night. I’ll come take over whenever y’all head out for the delivery. And at least fucking stay to feed these people. Text me when you make it home or I’ll come chasing after you.” She glanced at her watch. “And...well, if I don’t see you before you leave, I hope to see you whenever we get scheduled again.”

“I can’t wait for things to be normal,” Katya whispered meakly, offering a weak smile.

“Nah. I don’t think we can wish for something like that. But we can wish to be as close to normal as we possibly can.” Ginger gave her a small wave, letting the door click behind her.

Normal.

What was Trixie’s normal? Did she have one?

Every second that passed, Katya felt her gaze linger too long. Blonde curls, thick eyelashes, a pointed, skinny nose. Curves and soft valleys, gentle mumbles as she shifted against Katya’s torso. Everything bubbling within her. Curling around her stomach and throwing her from side to side, even the slightest part of her lips and arch in her hair. Her splayed fingers suddenly curling against Katya’s chest. Close. Always closer.

Why?

Why did she have to fall in love now?

Almost startled by the thought of those words, Katya inhaled quickly, suddenly erupting into a burst of coughing as she pulled just a bit away from the blonde she’d so dutifully held upright.

“Fuck, fuck, I-“ she sputtered, leaning into her arm and heaving. Trixie shifted her weight, eyes fluttering open.

And she felt so guilty for waking her.

“Sorry, bozhe muy, fuck,” she coughed, wiping at her eyes. “It definitely would’ve woken you up if I had moved.”

Trixie mumbled something indistinct under her breath, yawning as she settled her cheek against the older woman’s chest again. Katya felt everything freeze in that moment, like she had to live in this moment so intensely, in fear of never living in it again.

“Ginger came to kick us out twenty minutes ago, but she felt bad about me being a cunt and accidentally waking you up last night,” she rattled on, her voice low. Trixie’s ear was less than an inch away, it was hard to think of anything else.

And then the tiny voice came: “Are they late again?”, in reference to the morning deliveries.

A new Trixie. Like she had either been trained or this was real, the cracking edges of Trixie’s persona revealing the soft flow of a gentler nature. Cheeks blushing a light pink, the glow of sweat with hair sticking to her forehead. Lashes fluttering. An angel.

“Yeah.” She said more than that, but she wouldn’t be able to repeat it. Too focused.

Cutting off her rambling, the blonde extended her arms, stretching until something popped back into place. Trixie smiled, almost to herself, and sighed. “We should get over there for when they finally get there.”

And then she turned her head, and Katya’s world practically came crashing down.

Earnest eyes, searching her own expression. Dim light, youth, and the concentrated look of being deep in thought. Picking out every detail she could on Katya’s face. She had feathery eyebrows, ones Katya didn’t often notice. So casual, so airy, ethereal - an angel, an angel that she had once held close, an angel she wanted to hold close again. Closer than this. Closer than possible.

“Do I look that bad?”

I’m only going to make things worse for you.

“You didn’t sleep, did you?”

Who said you were allowed to do that? The way she saw through it all so quickly. She had to know. Katya’s eyes darted to Trixie’s free hand.

And then she gave some shitty excuse that she couldn’t quite recall. It all just tumbled out, truly.

“I have ibuprofen somewhere in my bag-“

“It wouldn’t work.”

She hung her head. The addict. Like Trixie somehow knew about that, too.

The blonde stood, beckoning to Katya with a fragile smile. She said, “Something good is going to happen today,” or something similar to it, and Katya wanted to say she was right. How funny, Trixie trying to uplift her as she made plans of abandoning the blonde altogether.

Lots happened as they walks, and next to nothing happened as they walked. Katya was in a trance, her mouth moving whenever she knew she needed to respond, her eyes never leaving the light, her angel.

When she came to, her head was tilted up, lips pressed against Trixie’s in a kiss so chaste she probably could’ve done it in church.

Even her subconscious was in on it, too.

“I don’t think I’m doing any of this right,” she recalled saying.

The buzz in her head was going to kill her. Stress, nerves, the lack of nicotine, Trixie on her tail - it all coiled tightly around her body, restricting access to everything life giving. In the doorway of the path to the library, Katya gasped for air, a hand grabbing at the fabric of her shirt.

She’d probably never forget watching the sun rise against Trixie’s silhouette. A world so far from her own, the clouding sensation of nausea and the pangs in her head, all suddenly alleviated for just a split second as the blonde turned her head back to smile in her direction. Just as she thought, an angel, with the faintest of outlines of wings. A halo, a definite glow, a warmth so indisputable. This was where Trixie belonged: her feet in the grass, hands clasped behind her back, skin shining.

This is where you belong.

“It’s really nice, yeah?” she croaked, coughing into her elbow. Trixie tilted her head, smile widening as she nodded and shifted her weight to face the older woman.

If Katya left, she’d probably never see that angel again. The blonde would be too angry that she was abandoned. When Trixie had first arrived, she’d almost insisted on not even being friends.

Maybe that was smart.

“It won’t last.” The words tumbled out before Katya could stop them. “It’s gonna rain again. And you’ll forget the sun was ever watching over us.”

Trixie’s face fell, but not to anger.

“You worried me last night,” she said quietly. “The way you talked about the walls, and how close they felt.”

“And?” Maybe I can make you hate me.

“Well, comparing now to when I woke up...” The blonde trailed off, lifting her chin to the morning sky. “I’d say those walls are closer now than they were before.”

Katya snorted. “Maybe you’re the crazy one out of the two of us.”

“Maybe I’d almost accepted the way things were. That air conditioning was the new fresh air, and pallets of bottled water were the new oceans. It’s like...readjusting the world entirely. I feel so out of place. Like I’m not me, almost?” She laughed - a delicate, embarrassed one, unusual for her - and scratched her cheek. “Maybe I’m losing it.”

Meagerly offering a smile, Katya leaned against the back wall. “Yeah? Tell me ‘bout it.”

“I guess...when that guy pulled me out of my car, I thought it was the end of the world.” Her accent laid heavy over every word, as if she’d stopped trying to keep her southern roots at bay. “And I parked it on the side of the highway - he pulled me over like a police stop, yeah - and just thought, like, well, it’s all over.” A quiet sigh. “And what you said about praying when you’ve never prayed before, and being mad at gods you never believed in...that was completely it. I wasn’t angry and pent up because this storm was an annoying nuisance. It was because it took away what I thought my life would be.”

“You’re just missing class,” Katya huffed, sucking on her teeth.

“Class that I’ve worked for four straight years to afford.”

“What do you get back if they cancel the semester?”

“Half of tuition. Nothing for my dorm, even though it’s already flooded probably,” Trixie muttered as she lowered her gaze.

“That’s fucked.”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “It is, huh?”

They stood for a few moments, staring at each other. Both silently livid, resigned, and hollow.

Katya reached for her pocket, breathing through her nose as she pulled out her phone. “Le’me show you something.”

The blonde tilted her head, stepping to lean against the back wall beside the older woman.

“I think everything’s gone too, y’know. But, I...uh, haha...” Katya scratched the back of her neck as she pulled up a picture.

It was bright, glowing. A small, off-white, near yellowing house, with a dark gunmetal roof and little green blinds. Surrounded by tall pines and an older oak, curling around the back path that must’ve lead to some backyard. Nothing extraordinary. A regular little house, one that you would drive by without offering a second glance. The small figure of Katya sat on the doorstep, one leg extended down the steps and the other pulled close to her body, a cigarette in hand. Taken in the depths of fall, with amber leaves scattered at her feet.

“Oh.”

Katya watched Trixie’s face warp a little as her eyes dragged over the picture. And it wasn’t as satisfying as she thought it’d be.

“All those fucking pines, right?” The older woman shook her head. “It’s gotta be gone. And FEMA...they won’t give me much. All the apartments in town will be wrecked. I’ll have to move. Again.”

“I-it could still be alright, right?”

“There’ll be something fucked up about her. I’ve never been lucky.” She smiled. “But at least then we can think the same thing together - ‘both of our lives are ruined, fuck your God, He never gave me anything!’”

“Could you live in the library?” Furrowed brows, a concentrated expression. “Maybe stay in the shelter?”

“Why’re you so worried ‘bout me, Dolly?” Katya shoved the phone back in her pocket. “I’ll just live out of what’s left for as long as I can. It’ll be okay. But that’s not the point.”

The thought of a pine across the entirety of her small living room, the oak bent into her bedroom and cracked over the stairs. Katya’s mind went blank for a moment. Looking at that picture probably wasn’t a good idea, even if just to pull a reaction from Trixie.

“Do you live alone? Like, you pay for everything yourself?”

What an innocent question. “Yeah, Barbie. I do.” Another image: Katya standing at her doorstep, with the hollow framing of her house towering overhead.

“So you’d have to...”

Maybe her roof collapsed. Maybe everything’s gone.

“Cover everything myself. Yeah, Barbie, I would.” She stifled another coughing fit. They’d never embarrassed her before - but they did now.

“Are you getting sick?”

Maybe she’d drive up and there’d be an empty plot of land. Like a house had never been there in the first place. Maybe if enough time passed, Katya would convince herself she’d never had a home at all.

“Katya?”

The older woman jumped, hacking as she pressed a hand against her chest. That buzzing feeling, it would never go away. She turned to look at Trixie. Was the buzz stress? Lack of nicotine? The empty feeling in her stomach?

Regret, probably.

She shrugged in response, hobbling down the path like an old man. “Maybe. I’ll get over it.”

It was difficult to dedicate her heart to it. The act of leaving was more emotional than anything; it required breaking through mental barriers that lead to her early departure even being considered as an option. Pushing pallets of water and small cardboard boxes of shitty sandwiches, eyes glazing over, pure and unfiltered exhaustion. The day passed quickly onward, though Katya was convinced it would never end. Encountering as many people as possible, allowing pet visitations, walking a group of people and their dogs into the small blocks of grass between the main building and the library. Katya watched people come to life under the honest sun, and fade as quickly as they bloomed when she had to lock the door upon their return.

“Is that your first house?”

Trixie laid across their mattress like it was home, arms tucked behind her head and propping up her neck.

“What?” The older woman stood by her bag, throwing her phone into a side pocket. Keys. Cigarette butts. Car key. A change of clothes. Some cash. Her lighter, which felt all too cold in her hands.

“That picture you showed me.”

“Yeah, it’s my first. Not many people own more than one.”

“...I just thought it was kinda funny.” The blonde averted her gaze when Katya turned towards her. “You just...you look the exact same. I didn’t know if you would.”

“Fuck else am I supposed to look like?” she huffed.

“I mean. It’s not bad. I just wondered if you had to look different because of all this hurricane bullshit.” The blonde grinned toothily up at her. “Maybe you secretly really care about your hair, but it messes with your bad-girl image here. Maybe you always wear heels but couldn’t. Maybe...you’re a floor-length gown type?”

“Nah. I look the same.”

“Nothing different?”

Katya pulled a chair from behind the desk and sat down, leaning her head into her palm.“Basically the same. Just whiter teeth.” She exhaled, offering a small smile. “And I guess a little more stable. Emotionally.”

“Why the whiter teeth?”

“I don’t want pretty girls like you knowing I smoke,” Katya coughed. “What about you? You can’t gay-interview me and get away unscathed.”

“What do I look like?” Trixie cocked her head to the side, sitting upright.

“Yeah.” The older woman averted her gaze. This angle wasn’t necessarily unpleasant, but she didn’t want to let herself enjoy it too much.

“Well. I usually wear dresses...sometimes pants, I guess, but they aren’t really comfortable. Brights, definitely! Pink and hot pink and pastel pink yellow.”

Katya held a hand out, counting off the colors. “Pink, pink, pink, yellow?”

“Yeah. And?” Brushing her hair over her shoulders, the blonde seemed like she’d heard similar criticism before.

_I_ _should_ _keep_ _packing_ _my_ _bag_.

Shining eyes. A genuine conversation, one she hadn’t been able to enjoy all day. Something Trixie had become accustomed to, something she probably hoped would continue happening for the foreseeable future, something Katya owed her. Especially given the circumstances. She sighed, balancing her head back in her hands.

_I_ _have_ _time_.

“So you’re actually a cute 60’s Barbie?”

“I try!”

“Don’t think you have to. Do you act much different, y’know, when none of this is happening?”

Trixie hummed for a moment. “I guess...I don’t really know. I haven’t had a break from school or work in a long time, so I haven’t been anything expect someone who works.”

“So I’m one of the few to enjoy a stress-free Pixie Sticks?”

“Not stress free,” the blonde shrugged, “but if you enjoy it, that’s a plus.”

Silence wasn’t too awful between them. It was nice to enjoy this, quiet and thoughtful, despite Katya’s endless distractions. Her fingers tapped mindlessly on the table, vision blurring when a few moments passed, one leg bouncing just above the ground. She hadn’t slept in so long. Maybe it was finally catching up to her.

Only a few more hours.

She snapped back to reality with Trixie’s hand in front of her face, jumping when she realized how close the blonde was. Coughing once, then twice, Katya settled back into her chair, a splayed palm pressed against her chest.

“W-what?!”

“Have you quit smoking?”

Her eyes widened and she shut them immediately, wanting anything over having to meet the blonde’s gaze.

“Or are you...smoking in bathrooms now?”

“Why?” Katya asked quietly, toying with her bangs.

“You used to always smoke when we got back here. And I’ve been so tired, or...preoccupied,” Trixie continued, her voice dropping, “that I haven’t realized that you just - well, you just stopped.”

_Why_ _didn’t_ _I_ _tell_ _you_ _more_ _lies_?

Katya tilted her head, sighing.

_Why_ _are_ _you_ _starting_ _to_ _notice_ _things_ _that’re_ _real_?

“I, uh. No. I just lost ‘em,” she muttered, her body slumping a little. It felt weird saying it out loud.

“Can’t you take some from contraband?”

“Cigs aren’t contraband anymore.”

“Is that why you’re acting weird?” the blonde asked.

“I’m not - it’s not just that. I’m really tired...”

Of this place.

Just say it.

_I’m_ _really_ _tired_ _of_ _this_ _place_.

She lowered her gaze, meeting Trixie’s face.

“Just tired, I guess.”

“I’ll go into the main room and steal some tomorrow,” the blonde said plainly. Furrowed brows, pursed lips. She’d get the shit beaten out of her. Close to six feet, with gray bruises and bloodied knuckles, a pack of cigs in hand.

“How romantic. A real Romeo, huh?” The older woman held a hand out, resting it on Trixie’s head. As her hand moved, it felt stupid.

But sitting there, in warmth, was worth the awkward gesture. One that could almost lull her to sleep. For just a second, she wondered if Trixie had ever been real - or just a nicotine crazed dream, a hallucination to pull her through the stress and chaos.

“You should...I mean, I can go talk to Ginger tonight and make sure she’s alright. You need rest,” the blonde suggested after a moment or two. As if it somehow indicated that Katya was losing it when she almost started petting her like a dog. Fuck’s sake.

“Ah - no, you can’t. That’s not - no, no, I’m going tonight,” Katya said quickly, snatching her hand back.

Trixie leaned back, her hair falling over her shoulders. “Why? You’re tired.”

“You’re not on staff.”

“I basically am. I’m married to the staff, apparently,” she muttered, looking at her nails.

“I’m fucking going, okay?” Katya muttered, her tone chalky and exhasperated.

Taken aback, almost a little hurt. “Christ. Okay. I’m just tryn’a be nice here.”

This was Katya’s chance.

Her chance to be mean.

“... _Prosti_ , _solnyshka_ _muya_.”

Impossible.

“That better fuckin’ mean sorry.”

“You learn quickly.”

The blonde pouted a little more before leaning forward, offering a toothy grin. “Fine. Forgiven. You should go before Ginger comes down here and beats your ass.”

Katya stood slowly, supporting her weight on the arm of the chair as she grabbed her bag.

Was she supposed to say goodbye? Was a quiet disappearance better for them both? Maybe. Maybe.

When she turned, Trixie wasn’t on her back - she was standing. Feet planted on the edge of the mattress, an expectant look on her face. A strap on her bag fell from her shoulder clunkily, pulling open the main compartment.

“...What?”

“You’re really not a good Christian husband after all, huh?”

“Am I supposed to be doing something?”

“Close your eyes, you space witch.”

“Nooo, I might fall asleep-” Katya whined, trying her best to imitate the blonde’s accent, before she was cut off.

And it was the last thing she would’ve wanted as a goodbye.

Her eyes opened cautiously when she pulled away, the pale face still only a couple inches away.

“Isn’t that how married people end fights?”

“Not much of a fight. I just told you I was going to do something,” Katya huffed, her eyes dancing across Trixie’s face.

The blonde’s closed fist tapped Katya’s hip before she pulled her hands behind her back, a small, tight-lipped smile stretched across her face. “...Spoken like a real man.”

Trixie stood in the hallway when Katya started down, a distant expression on her face. Like waiting at a bus stop with no real destination and no money to pay for the ticket. But she had to forget about it. Let it go. Say goodbye.

Footsteps felt blurry. Darkness felt safe. Every movement was filled with static, fizzing and popping as she passed the main stairwell and turned the corner. Sleep loomed overhead, kneading into her shoulders and pressing its thumbs into the pressure point on the back of her neck.

_Dasvidaniya_. Goodbye.

The text was sent to Ginger. All her regrets were in check. Katya stood at the doorway, digging through her bag. She wanted to allow herself these moments, that final memory of the worst days of her life. The sweat and confusion, the rumbling beneath her feet and flashing thunder in the second floor windows. That indescribable feeling when she realized her cigarettes were gone, the bouncing thoughts of her ripped apart home, and the borderline hallucinations that persisted as her eyes stayed open farthet and farther into the night. Like if she held out her open palm, it would have a faint glow of warmth.

Going home was always the goal. Meeting people was a byproduct of her intentions, but she couldn’t help but feel like she was letting a lot of people down. That pang in Katya’s chest was alien at best, just as this world was supposed to be. But the fake world she’d dreamt up, where she was married and normal and just a happy gay librarian, was tantalizingly close to bordering the world outside these doors.

Fucking Trixie was her first mistake. Thinking it wouldn’t have any repercussions on the real world was her second mistake. Considering anything about this world to be separate from her regular life could have been her worst mistake.

Katya realized, in that final moment of collection, that her hands hadn’t brushed over her car key. Fumbling, turning up nothing. A strap fell off her shoulder as she let the realization settle over her: she’d have to go back to get it. And yet, there she stood. Like God Himself had a finger pressed into her head, forcing her to stay. A hand on the door, feet together, her back straight. Waiting for something worse to come.

And it came.

“Ginger’s on duty upstairs tonight. You know that, right?” The southern voice floated, airy and unassuming.

Fuck every last bit of her life. Katya felt her face tighten. Everything tightened.

“You walked by the staircase when you knew I was watching you. Why?”

“I. I...” Her breath caught in her throat. “Uh...It’s not. I’m just...making sure everything’s locked-“

“You really thought you could pack your getaway bag in front of my own fucking eyes and have me not notice it?”

She didn’t want to turn around.

“You thought I was so dumb to not think twice about why you were leaving with that packed bag?”

“Trixie, I’m not-“

“You’re a fucking idiot. That’s what.”

“Yeah.”

So ready to agree with the sentiment. Katya slowly turned, leaning her back against the door. Lifting her gaze, she saw a selective sadness, an intimate level of disappointment, something untouchable. And she saw Trixie, in the light of the real world, the way she knew that Trixie would look at her when all this faded to black. With a dark outline of a car key in her hand, the silver flashing against the reflection of the metal door.

“Tell me you didn’t think this through,” the blonde began, lifting a hand. “Tell me this is sporadic and just something you dreamed up for more adventure.”

“Trixie-“

“Is this because of your fucking cigarettes?” Trixie’s voice was only a hoarse whisper. Katya realized it must have been to keep from waking everyone in the main room, but it almost made each word all the more upsetting.

“No, I...”

A hot shame fell over her. Eyes burning, the hand wrapped around the arm of her bag shaking, shoulders slumped.

“I, I haven’t slept in days. I’m so tired, please - I don’t even know if you’re _real_ ,” Katya murmured, running her fingers through her bangs. “What if you’re some...fucked up punishment my brain dreamed up? You’d never know, know what it’s like to feel like this.”

“...If you can’t even be sure that I’m real, why in God’s name would it be a good idea to drive right now?”

Her voice was soft, genuine almost. And when Katya lifted her head, the blonde was a lot closer than she once was. A hand extended, tentative, fingers brushing against the older woman’s chin.

“I want to be fucking pissed, y’know,” Trixie said quietly.

“And you’re not?”

“I’m more curious than anything.”

Her back prickled, a static blur flashing in her field of view. Trixie’s expression was tinged with worry, as if she could see the sparks and stars, as if she could feel the weakness in Katya’s knees, as if she felt that feeling that Katya was convinced nobody else could feel. Like a hot flash but worse, hanging over her, robbing her of energy, clinging to every inch of her skin. Her fingers tapped incessantly on the glass of the door, a steady drumbeat.

“It’s not safe for you to go alone,” the gentle suggestion came. The words twisted around Katya’s body, ringing in her ears as she lifted her chin to stare dumbfounded at the blonde. And she smiled back, like an angel so disconnected, something divine that couldn’t be tainted by the grime of their shared hurricane.

“That’s...no, no, it’s not safe for you to come at all. Don’t let me drag you into this.”

“I’m not letting you drive unless you rest,” Trixie said firmly, holding the key over her head. Like a child, Katya reached for it without thinking. She felt a hand lace around the small of her bank, yanking her forward until her torso was pressed to the blonde’s, their faces closer than Katya had ever thought they’d be again.

“What’re y-“

“You have gas in your car, right?”

Katya nodded, every tangible word stuck in her throat.

“Then let’s go live normal lives until all of this passes,” the blonde murmured quietly, her head dipped into the older woman’s shoulder. “Let’s go be fucking stupid and stop pretending like this right now is normal and fine. And let’s do it quickly, before I change my mind all over again.”

Katya knew that she shouldn’t.

“I owe you one, you dumb whore. Let me pay you back, Katya, please - you treated me well here. Made this all feel like home.”

Taking Trixie with her could be seen as some form of kidnapping, if not illegal in some way at least. And beyond that, it was downright selfish - selfish to assume that her life would so easily fall into place with Trixie’s, selfish to take her away from steady food supplies, selfish to put in harm’s way, selfish to even suspect that Trixie may be motivated by something beyond absolute pity. Katya was nothing worth worrying over now, only a husk of the person she didn’t really enjoy being in the first place.

It was selfish.

“Let me take you home, Katya.”

So intensely selfish.

“Promise you’ll forgive me,” the older woman choked, inhaling shakily.

“Yeah, yeah. Already done.”

Enjoying silence for one last moment, Trixie took the bag from Katya’s shoulder and huffed, nodding and grinning as if to signal she was ready to go. And that she meant it, too. Boldly, Trixie took the first move: holding the door open with an arm extended.

“Ladies first, right?”

They ran out together, more energy running through Katya’s veins than she’d felt in the past weeks combined. She felt bits and pieces of herself blossom when Trixie unlocked her car, and she flung herself into the passenger’s seat. Trixie sat calmly in the driver’s side, toying with Katya’s phone to pull up directions. Focused. She really meant it, every word. Half-lidded, the imagine of care and concern wrapped into one. Katya was going home.

“Ginger won’t be too pissed, right?”

She caught Trixie’s eye, the blonde tilting her head and grinning at the older woman.

“Nothing I haven’t heard before,” Katya murmured.

Trixie nodded, flipping the car into reverse and throwing her arm over Katya’s headrest as she angled her head to back out. Every blink felt heavy, watching the bright blur of her phone that quietly read out directions onto the nearest main road, hearing the pitter-patter of short rainfall.

For the first time since everything began, and while headed right into the center of the shitstorm itself, Katya felt at ease.

“I’ll wake you if we run into trouble,” the blonde hummed, flipping through radio channels. A slow, warm static, with the occasional bump of talking or music. “Get some rest.”

It was then she knew that she trusted Trixie, really.

So Katya drifted off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends !   
> for those who dont care for my apologetic rambling:  
> this is the last super tense chapter ! fun sawft lesbian times ahead, get excited ❤️ thank you for your patience ! 
> 
> i’m very sorry for my inconsistent uploads, but i must be honest: i had some very scary health things come up this past month, and writing just wasn’t in the forefront of my head. but i’m healthy now, not broke as fuck like i thought i’d be, and much better than i was at the start of march ! may april treat us all better, and hopefully i’ll get more chapters up for you all ❤️ 
> 
> i hope you all are doing well, and thank you for reading !! i’ll catch up with comments sometime this week, but please leave feedback, it always makes my day ❤️ take care of yourselves, and see you soon !

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone ❤️
> 
> Needed to get this fic out. Kind of a disclaimer: I lived right where Florence hit, so a lot of this is first-hand kind of stuff. 
> 
> I hope to pick up my other fic, No Witnesses, soon! Sorry for anybody waiting, my headspace just hasn’t been the greatest for a heavier one like that. I hope you all understand. 
> 
> Thank you for reading ❤️ I’d love feedback ! 
> 
> Kotenok - kitten in Russian. form of endearment.
> 
> edit - title change. Felt super similar to another fic here, didn’t want to encroach on anyone’s ideas


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